BACK  OF  THE  FRONT 
IN  FRANCE 


BRADLEY 


Columbia  Sftnibersitp 
in  tlje  Citp  of  iSeto  gorfe 


LIBRARY 


GIVEN    BY 


GIFT  OP 
W.  W.  WILSON 


^'  4 


BACK  OF  THE   FRONT 
IN    FRANCE 

LETTERS  FROM  AMY  OWEN  BRADLEY 
MOTOR  DRIVER 

OF   THE 

AMERICAN   FUND  FOR  FRENCH  WOUNDED 


WITH  SIXTEEN  ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON 
W.    A.    BUTTERFIELD 

59  BROMFIELD  ST. 


Gift  of 

H.  Vv^.  WILSON 
MAR  2  2  1929 


COPYBIGHT 

W.  A.  BUTTEEFIELD 
Sbptbmbxb,  1918 


K 

in 


3Betrttatetr 

TO   THE    MANY    WORKERS    FOR 

THE    AMERICAN    FUND   FOR    FRENCH    WOUNDED 

WHOSE    LABORS    HAVE    ENABLED   HELP 

AND    ENCOURAGEMENT 

TO   BE    BROUGHT    TO    SO    MANY    BRAVE    SOLDIERS 

AND   DEVOTED    WOMEN    OP   FRANCE 

IN   THEIR   TIME   OF  TRIAL 


FOREWORD 

These  letters  from  a  young  American  girl  in 
France  to  her  family,  were  written  without 
thought  of  publication.  She  is  still  in  France 
and  has  therefore  been  unable  to  revise  them  her- 
self, or  correct  errors  due  to  the  haste  with  which 
they  were  written. 

They  are  the  simple  record  of  what  she  has 
seen  and  felt  in  France,  in  doing  work  that  has 
taken  her  from  Brittany  to  the  Alps. 

R.  M.  B. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 
Winter  in  Paris 1 

CHAPTER  n 
Brittany  and  Iti  Hospitals 14 

CHAPTER  in 
A  Visit  to  Verdun 41 

CHAPTER  IV 
Pershing's  Troops  Arrive         .        .        .        .        .57 

CHAPTER  V 
Back  of  the  Front  at  Nancy  .        .        .        -      6S 

CHAPTER  VI 
Chambbry  and  Our  Soldiers  on  Leave  .        .        .    103 


Vll 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


Interior  of  A.  F.  F.  W.  D6p6t  at  Quimper    .         Frontispiece 
Exterior  of  A.  F.  F.  W.  D6p6t  at  Quimper     .  .14 

Miss  Key  with  a  German  prisoner  and  a  French  doctor  24 

United  States  flag  on  Mairie  at  Quimper       ...  26 

Sisters  at  a  hospital 30 

"Maggie"  in  center  of  a  ruined  town    ....  43 

The  morning  shave,  back  of  the  trenches       ...  48 

Pet  baby  wild  boar 50 

** Somewhere"  near  Verdun 56 

Motor  of  Zeppelin  at  Bourbonne 71 

Remains  of  a  "Taube"  at  Champenoux         ...  74 

Poste  de  Secours 99 

American  soldiers  at  Chamb^ry 121 

American  soldiers  on  Y.  M.  C.  A.  steps  at  Chamb^ry   .  128 

Belgian  tuberculosis  hospital  at  Chamb6ry    .         .         .  133 

A.  F.  F.  W.  D6p6t  at  Chamb6ry 143 


IX 


INTRODUCTION 

The  American  Fund  for  French  Wounded 
started  its  work  of  emergency  relief  for  the  suf- 
ferers in  France  in  April,  1915,  as  a  part  of  an 
English  organization.  By  December,  1915,  the 
desire  to  help  France  and  to  testify  to  the  deep 
sympathy  with  her  cause  had  resulted  in  such  a 
rapid  growth  of  the  organization  in  this  country 
that  an  independent  American  society  was  formed 
with  a  central  distributing  depot  in  Paris. 

The  work  in  America  has  been  carried  on  by 
many  hundreds  of  committees  throughout  the 
entire  country.  In  these  committees  thousands 
of  workers  have  for  more  than  three  years  given 
countless  hours  of  labor,  preparing  and  packing 
surgical  dressings,  hospital  supplies  and  garments, 
refugee  clothing  and  comfort  bags.  Over  40,000 
cases  filled  with  these  supplies  have  been  for- 
warded to  Frauice  in  that  time,  besides  motor 
cars  and  trucks  for  the  delivery  service  of  the 
Fund,  and  sums  of  money  for  immediate  emer- 
gency calls. 

In  France,  these  supplies  have  been  distributed 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

from  the  Paris  Depot  and  from  the  many  branch 
depots  and  dispensaries,  this  work  being  carried 
on  with  the  approval  of  the  French  Government 
and  in  cooperation  with  the  American  Red  Cross. 
It  is  hoped  that  these  letters  may  help  some  of 
the  many  devoted  workers  of  the  Fund  to  follow 
in  imagination  their  handiwork  until  it  reaches 
those  who  are  so  sorely  in  need  across  the  sea. 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT 
IN  FRANCE 

CHAPTER  I 

Winter  in  Paris 

Paris,  October  31,  1916. 

Here  we  are,  arrived  safely,  after  spending  our 
first  night  in  Bordeaux,  and  I  am  staying  with 
Uncle  Owen  and  Marie. 

The  statue  of  Alsace-Lorraine  in  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde  still  wears  her  mourning  wreaths, 
but  she  holds  a  French  flag  in  one  of  her  hands. 

We  went  yesterday  to  see  the  headquarters 
of  the  American  Fund  for  French  Wounded  at 
the  Alcazar  d'Ete.  The  office  is  near  the  Champs 
Ely  sees  in  a  lovely  place  surrounded  by  trees, 
and  the  sun  comes  pouring  into  the  workrooms. 

At  present,  in  the  mornings  I  am  to  file  papers 
containing  requests,  and  in  the  afternoons  to 
pack  comfort  bags.  We  are  to  work  in  shifts 
of  five  hours  a  day  each,  which  doesn't  sound 
very  appalling,  but  it  is  quite  strenuous. 

1 


2  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

It  makes  you  realize  how  near  the  Germans 
got  to  Paris  to  go  out  to  Neuilly,  and  see  the 
trenches  and  barbed  wire  on  the  old  wall  of 
Paris.  We  walked  there  with  some  Ambulance 
boys  who  were  on  the  steamer.  They  wore  their 
uniforms  for  the  first  time,  and  were  tremendously 
proud  of  them.  Every  time  they  meet  an  officer, 
of  course  they  have  to  salute.  They  were  very 
shy  about  it,  and  when  they  saw  an  officer  com- 
ing, half  a  block  away,  they  would  tell  us  not  to 
laugh  or  look  at  them,  and  as  of  course  we  met 
about  three  officers  in  every  block,  our  conversa- 
tion was  constantly  interrupted  by  saluting.  We 
would  be  laughing  over  something,  when  suddenly 
a  wooden  expression  would  come  over  the  boys' 
faces,  half  a  block  would  be  paced  in  silence,  and 
then  a  salute  hke  a  railroad  signal  moving  up  and 
down  would  follow,  when  the  conversation  would 
resume  its  natural  flow.  These  Ambulance  boys 
are  probably  going  to  the  Argonne  section,  — 
one  has  already  gone,  and  bade  us  a  very  cheerful 
and  desperately  serious  farewell.  That  section 
is  no  joke. 

One  of  the  Ambulance  boys  thought  he  would 
see  Paris  the  other  day,  so  he  wandered  about 
(reaUy  to  practice  saluting  in  his  uniform). 
Finally,  being  tired,  he  sat  down  at  a  table  in  a 
cafe  to  rest.     When  he  got  up  to  go,  he  picked  up 


WINTER   IN   PARIS  S 

his  gloves,  and  was  greeted  by  a  piercing  scream 
from  a  Frenchwoman  near  by,  who  said  he  was 
going  off  with  a  pair  of  gloves  belonging  to  an 
English  officer  at  a  table  opposite.  Neither 
understood  French,  but  the  English  officer  left, 
seeing  that  some  kind  of  row  was  up,  and  not 
wanting  to  be  involved  in  it.  The  woman,  how- 
ever, hung  on  to  the  American,  and  yelled  for 
the  police.  Meanwhile  a  crowd  gathered.  A 
passing  voice  came  out  of  it,  —  "There's  one  of 
those  Ambulance  boys  in  trouble  again."  The 
pohceman  asked  him  for  something,  probably 
his  "permis  de  sejour,"  and,  as  he  couldn't  under- 
stand, he  didn't  produce  it.  Then  he  and  the 
woman  were  both  hauled  off  to  the  police  station, 
where,  naturally,  he  swore  that  the  pair  of  gloves 
he  had  were  his  own,  made  in  the  U.  S.  A., 
showed  his  "permis  de  sejour,"  and  was  let  go 
at  once.  When  he  got  home,  he  found  that  he  had 
two  pairs  of  gloves  I 

The  Ambulance  men  certainly  do  have  odd 
experiences  on  account  of  being  unable  to  speak 
the  "lingo."  At  Bordeaux,  Ehot's  bags  failed 
to  get  on  the  train  because  he  didn't  have  a  ticket, 
he  got  one  of  the  few  porters,  exclaiming, 
"  Vous-me-ici ! "  and  ran  for  the  ticket  window. 
There  was  a  whole  line  of  soldiers  buying  tickets, 
but,  nothing  daunted,  he  seized  the  porter  by  one 


4  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

hand,  and  rushed  down  the  whole  hne  of  soldiers, 
tipping  each  one  a  franc  (as  he  had  nothing 
smaller).  They  all  laughed,  and  let  him  get  to 
the  window  and  buy  his  ticket.  He  said  he  was 
bankrupt  from  that  time  on. 

Paris,  November  30,  1916. 

Yesterday  in  the  metro,  I  saw  a  common  soldier 
on  crutches  get  into  the  car,  A  colonel,  with  a 
very  careworn  face,  got  up  and  gave  him  his  seat 
saying,  *'It  is  hard  for  you  to  stand,  my  boy." 
The  soldier  was  only  a  lad,  and  he  blushed  and  said, 
"Merci,  mon  Colonel,"  and  had  a  frightful  time 
keeping  his  balance,  while  trying  to  salute.  The 
Colonel  held  him  up  while  he  saluted,  and  helped 
him  to  the  seat.  When  he  got  off,  the  car  was 
crowded,  and  the  Colonel  helped  him  to  the  door 
and  out. 

My  work  has  been  changed,  and  I  now  drive 
a  Ford  to  do  errands  about  Paris.  The  car, 
whose  name  is  "Lizzie,"  is  painted  gray,  with 
red  crosses  and  "  Comite  Americain  pour  les 
Blesses  Frangais "  on  one  side,  and  "  American 
Fund  for  French  Wounded  "  on  the  other.  I've 
had  her  for  two  days,  and  take  care  of  her  as  well 
as  drive  her.  I  also  wear  a  uniform  which  con- 
sists of  my  leather  coat  with  shoulder  straps, 
marked  A.  F.  F.  W.,  and  a  blue  felt  hat  with  A.  F. 


WINTER  IN   PARIS  5 

F.  W.  on  the  hatband.  Nobody  in  Paris  knows 
what  it  means,  as  the  Motor  Service  of  the  A.  F. 
F.  W.  has  had  uniforms  only  a  week.  Hence 
every  one  stares,  especially  as  most  women  in 
France  don't  wear  uniforms  in  the  street  (one 
does  not  even  see  many  uniformed  nurses).  How- 
ever, I've  discovered  a  way  not  to  be  stared  at, 
and  that  is  to  stand  near  the  door  of  the  metro, 
where  they  take  you  for  a  new  variety  of  ticket- 
woman. 

The  first  time  I  had  Lizzie  out  I  was  to  be  a 
messenger,  and  I  left  her  in  front  of  the  Alcazar 
d'Ete  while  I  went  to  lunch.  When  I  came  back, 
lo !  there  was  a  flat  tire,  and  I  proceeded  to  take 
it  off"  and  put  in  a  new  inner  tube.  No  sooner 
had  I  started  to  change  it,  than  six  soldiers  emerged 
from  the  atmosphere,  in  their  atmospheric  blue 
uniforms,  all  asking  if  they  could  give  me  a  "coup 
de  main,"  and  they  would  not  let  me  put  the  tire 
on  myself.  Then  I  needed  an  electric  tape, 
and  the  lieutenant  rushed  off  to  a  near-by  taxi 
and  got  a  piece  for  me.  At  last  I  started 
out,  but  lo!  Lizzie  was  in  a  vicious  mood, 
and  the  tire  went  flat  again  in  about  two  feet. 
I  had  to  take  it  ofi"  again,  and  again  to  my 
aid  a  French  soldier  sprang,  full  armed  with 
a  monkey-wrench,  from  the  pavement  of  the 
Champs  Elysees. 


6  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

Paris,  January  1,  1917. 

The  night  before  Christmas,  I  thought  of  you 
sitting  about  the  fire,  and  hanging  up  the  stock- 
ings, but  it  made  me  too  homesick  to  think  of  it. 

On  Christmas  Eve,  I  went  to  a  canteen  party. 
There  was  a  big  room  in  which  were  three  long 
tables  filled  with  soldiers,  —  every  kind  of  soldier, 
all  in  their  rain-and-sun  faded  uniforms,  for  they 
were  going  back  to  the  front  the  next  day.  When 
we  got  there,  they  were  all  eating  under  a  ceiling 
festooned  with  red,  white,  and  blue,  and  the  en- 
tertairmnent  was  ready  to  begin.  Various  people 
sang  French  songs  for  them,  which  they  politely 
clapped.  Then  a  woman  with  a  magnificent 
voice  sang  a  song  in  French  about  Christmas 
night.  There  was  a  dead  silence,  then  "Un, 
deux,  trois;  un,  deux,  trois,"  and  they  all  clapped 
in  rhythm.  It  is  thrilling  to  hear,  and  they  do 
it  when  especially  pleased.  They  shouted  and 
stamped  their  feet  for  more,  but  they  were  not 
to  have  more  from  her  then.  The  entertainment 
went  on ;  Harvard  and  Yale  songs  were  sung  by 
the  Ambulance  boys,  accompanied  by  mandolin, 
guitar,  and  piano.  Those  were  wildly  applauded 
in  the  same  manner.  A  Belgian  started  to  sing ; 
he  had  a  fearful  voice,  but  he  was  good-naturedly 
clapped  and  cheered.  Then  one  of  the  Ambulance 
boys  got  up  and  sang  "My  Laddie,"  and  "My 


WINTER  IN  PARIS  7 

Little  Gray  Home  in  the  West,"  in  one  of  the 
sweetest,  truest  voices  I  have  ever  heard.  The 
poilus  hstened  so  intently  that  you  could  have 
heard  a  pin  drop.  Of  course  they  couldn't  under- 
stand the  words,  but  they  loved  it,  and  yelled 
"bis"  and  "encore."  When  he  had  sat  down, 
they  all  began  calling  something.  At  first  we 
didn't  know  what.  Then  we  realized  it  was 
"  Tippe-re-ree "  that  they  wanted,  so  we  all  sang 
it  together.  The  poilus  sang,  too,  though  heaven 
knows  how  they  pronounced  the  words,  or  whether 
they  sang  in  French  or  Flemish. 

After  that,  we  passed  candy  to  them,  and  every 
one  of  them  said,  "Merci,  Mademoiselle."  When 
I  came  to  one  of  the  side  tables,  where  the  seats 
were  against  the  wall,  I  handed  the  bowl  to  the 
end  man  and  told  him  to  pass  it  down.  That 
went  very  well ;  they  smiled  their  "Merci,  Made- 
moiselle" across  the  table  to  me,  until  the  bowl 
came  to  a  colored  man  as  black  as  soot.  He  took 
it  from  the  next  man,  reached  it  across  the  table 
to  me,  and  said,  "  I  want  it  from  your  own  hands," 
so  I  had  to  pass  it  up  the  rest  of  the  way,  leaning 
across  the  table ! 

Then  the  black  man  wanted  to  sing.  He  sang ; 
—  the  song  was  about  a  Belgian  saying  good-bye 
to  his  relations.  A  verse  was  devoted  to  each  — 
Mother,    Father,    Sister,    Brother,    Wife,    Little 


8  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

Girl,  Son,  Aunt,  Uncle,  all  listened  to  with  great 
patience.  Each  stanza  was  droned  out  in  a  deep, 
sad  voice,  while  the  singer  rolled  his  eyes  to  the 
ceiling  in  a  kind  of  amen  at  the  end.  After  the 
"Uncle,"  he  began  on  the  "Cousins,"  and  the 
poilus  saw  no  end.  They  clapped  vociferously, 
and  yelled  to  him  to  sit  down,  which  he  finally 
did  among  cheers,  claps,  and  laughter.  When 
they'd  finally  got  him  seated,  a  young,  sensitive- 
looking  French  soldier  arose.  They  all  shouted, 
"un  camarade  —  un  poilu!"  He  cleared  his 
throat  and  began,  at  first  very  low  and  timidly, 
a  song  about  "La  Lune,"  and  the  rest  all  joined 
in  the  chorus.     It  was  quite  lovely. 

At  the  end  they  all  stood  up  and  sang  the  "  Mar- 
seillaise," until  the  welkin  rang.  Then  they  shouted, 
"Vive  I'Amerique!"  "Vive  la  France!"  and, 
though  no  Enghsh  were  there,  "Vive  I'Angleterre  ! " 

When  they  went  out,  we  gave  them  comfort 
bags  to  take  away,  and  they  went  off  gloating 
over  their  peeps  into  them. 

On  Christmas  afternoon,  Marie  and  I  went  to 
a  hospital  to  distribute  comfort  bags.  All  the 
men  were  as  dressed  up  as  they  could  be  under 
the  circumstances,  and  were  smiling  at  us  from 
their  beds  when  we  came  in.  We  gave  each  one 
a  bag.  They  were  dehghted,  especially  as  the 
bags  came  from  America,  and  were  particularly 


WINTER   IN  PARIS  9 

nice  ones.  A  good  many  of  the  bags  contained 
musical  instruments,  such  as  mouth  organs.  Most 
of  the  men  didn't  know  how  to  play  them,  but 
one  poilu  did,  and  I  dare  say  strange  and  weird 
sounds  were  issuing  from  that  ward  by  morning, 
for,  as  one  soldier  said,  "We  have  plenty  of  time 
here  to  learn."  A  good  many  of  the  bags  had 
messages  in  English  in  them  on  postal  cards. 
These  we  translated  for  them,  and  they  loved 
them,  especially  the  ones  from  children.  One 
man  had  a  tiny  pink  looking-glass  in  his  bag. 
He  considered  it  a  treasure  of  untold  value,  and 
kept  picking  it  up  and  looking  at  it,  back  and 
front,  every  few  moments.  I  really  don't  know 
whether  he  liked  the  back  or  the  front  better. 
In  some  of  the  bags  was  chewing  gum,  and  as  we 
hadn't  time  to  take  it  out,  Marie  made  them  a 
speech,  and  told  them  not  to  swallow  it  or  they 
would  be  ill.  She  said  that  the  Americans  chew 
it  for  good  luck,  and  then  spit  it  out. 

When  we  went  away,  the  men  called  "  au  re  voir" 
after  us,  and  one  of  the  sisters,  a  tiny  lady  in 
a  white  coiffe,  kissed  us  on  both  cheeks  "to  thank 
you  for  my  poilus." 

Paris,  January  6th,  1917. 

This  week  I  have  done  absolutely  nothing  but 
lie  on  my  back  under  Lizzie,  or  else  scrub  and 


10  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

arrange  her  from  above.  She  has  a  nervous, 
temperamental  disposition,  poor  dear,  and  one 
never  can  tell  what  she  will  do  next.  She  has 
really  been  an  awful  trial  to  my  nerves  during 
this  last  month,  as  I  have  driven  her  nearly 
every  day,  and  every  day  she  has  done  something. 
There's  nothing  I  don't  know  about  1914  Fords 
by  now.  First,  her  carburetor  leaked  perpetually 
for  a  week,  —  awful !  when  gasohne  is  3.60  francs 
for  five  Hters.  Neither  they,  at  the  Ford  place, 
nor  we,  at  the  garage,  could  find  out  what  the 
matter  was.  It  seemed  to  be  plain  cussedness,  — 
however  we  changed  the  carburetor.  I  wrote  you 
before,  that  the  first  day  I  drove  her  she  had  three 
tire-changing  fits,  —  last  week  she  had  another 
speU  of  them  in  the  other  rear  tire.  The  tires 
were  completely  worn  out,  so  we  got  new  ones. 
You'd  think  that  would  be  enough,  but  no,  we 
took  her  all  to  pieces  and  cleaned  out  the  carbon, 
for  the  second  time  in  two  weeks,  and  put  her 
together  again.  She  wasn't  a  bit  grateful,  how- 
ever, and  the  next  day  obligingly  dropped  off  her 
gasoline  pipe  for  me.  It  had  come  unsoldered. 
I  must  say  to  her  credit  that  she  had  the  sense  to 
do  it  in  the  garage  doorway,  and  not  at  the 
Place  de  F Opera  or  the  Champs  Elysees  or 
the  Arc  de  Triomphe  (why  add  insult  to  injury  ?) 
or  the  Faubourg  St.  Honore  which  she  had  chosen 


WINTER  IN   PARIS  11 

as  fitting  settings  for  her  other  tantrums.  How- 
ever, it  took  two  days  to  get  it  soldered  on  again, 
as  it  is  almost  impossible  to  find  people  who  can  do 
the  job,  which  takes  about  fifteen  minutes  perhaps. 
Was  that  enough?  No.  The  next  day  I  took 
Cousin  Bessie  to  do  some  errands  needed  for  her 
trip  to  the  front.  Lizzie  had  fits  again.  The 
next  day  I  took  her  out  to  the  Ford  place  as  oil 
was  leaking  through  her  piston  rings,  and  she  went 
on  two  cylinders,  —  which  made  her  motion  hke 
that  caused  by  Dummerston  "Thank-ye-ma'ams." 
They  couldn't  mend  her  till  the  middle  of  next 
week,  and  I  have  spent  the  last  two  days  in  paint- 
ing her  outsides,  which  were  completely  bare  in 
places.  Of  course  I  got  under  her  to  paint  the  rods 
below,  that  were  all  rusty.  When  the  paint  fell  on 
my  face,  I  felt  like  Michael  Angelo  painting  the 
ceihng  of  the  Sistine  Chapel.  I  also  got  a  lot 
of  it  in  my  hair,  which  so  helps  one's  personal 
appearance  1 

If  there  is  one  thing  in  fife  that  I  never  expected 
to  be,  it  is  a  coal  heaver.  The  business  as  con- 
ducted in  Boston  has  never  appealed  to  me. 
Nevertheless,  —  I  have  been  one.  It  is  almost 
impossible  to  get  coal  here.  You  have  to  fetch 
it  yourself.  Barbara  Howe,  from  Boston,  and  I 
went  to  get  some  the  other  day,  on  the  way 
home  from  work  in  Lizzie.     We  finally  managed 


n    BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

to  get  a  bag  containing  a  scant  two  bushels,  I 
should  say,  and  paid  ten  francs  for  it.  Miss 
Howe  had  just  received  a  letter  from  her  family, 
commenting  on  how  luxuriously  she  was  hving 
in  an  apartment  by  herseK!  She  told  me  that, 
just  as  we  were  heaving  the  bag  up  the  steps, 
and  we  collapsed  with  giggles,  and  could  go  no 
farther  for  some  moments,  to  the  astonishment 
of  the  passing  inhabitants  of  Paris. 

Paris,  February  2. 

Monday,  Dorothy  and  I  went  to  another  hos- 
pital. It  was  run  by  sisters,  and  was  as  clean 
and  neat  as  a  pin,  and  very  sunny.  The  men 
were  all  in  little  rooms,  two  or  three  together, 
and  all  convalescent.  They  were  making  little 
chains  out  of  beads,  very  patiently,  and  seemed 
glad  to  see  us.  One  man,  who  was  plastered  all 
over  with  medals,  and  had  one  leg,  took  great 
joy  in  telling  us  which  medal  was  which,  but 
wouldn't  tell  us  how  he  got  them.  A  man  with 
one  arm  said,  "Yes,  when  one  has  only  one  leg 
the  medals  are  good  as  a  consolation,  only  you've 
got  to  do  something  to  get  them."  He  didn't 
have  any  medals,  but  seemed  to  think  it  un- 
necessary for  him,  as  he  had  both  legs. 

We  have  just  heard  the  news  of  our  having 
broken  relations  with  Germany.     Dorothy  and 


WINTER  IN   PARIS  13 

I  were  out  in  the  motor  the  morning  the  news 
came,  and  an  old  gentleman  nearly  fell  out  of  a 
passing  taxi  trying  to  salute  us.  At  the  hospitals, 
they  aJl  say  that  they  hope  soon  to  welcome 
our  country,  as  well  as  ourselves,  as  allies. 

Marie  got  a  letter  from  her  filleul,  telling  how 
he  had  hung  a  big  sign  over  the  trench  proclaim- 
ing that  the  U.  S.  is  now  against  the  "barbares," 
which  greatly  enraged  the  opposing  Hun.  Also 
aU  along  the  front  they  have  fired  salvos  of  the 
75's  to  arouse  the  Roches,  and  to  celebrate  our 
breaking  off  diplomatic  relations. 

I  do  hope  our  supplies  won't  stop  coming  on 
account  of  the  submarines  and  the  break  with 
Germany.  The  need  is  so  terrible,  and  still  as 
great,  if  not  greater,  than  ever. 

I  have  just  got  S.'s  letter  about  her  house- 
party.  It  does  seem  so  jolly  and  cozy  and  safe. 
It  is  a  good  thing  that  there  is  a  spot  left  on  earth 
where  one  can  laugh,  just  for  the  joy  of  laughing. 

The  number  of  wounded  is  a  thing  one  never 
gets  used  to.  It  is  awful  to  see  every  other 
soldier  wearing  a  "wounded"  badge.  Imagine 
if  every  second  man  in  the  Roston  subway  wore 
one,  and  nearly  every  woman  were  in  deep  black. 
It's  terrible  to  think  of.  However,  more  and 
more,  one  perceives  the  courage  behind,  and  that 
seems  the  greatest  thing  of  all. 


CHAPTER  II 
Brittany  and  Its  Hospitals 

Le  Mans,  March  8,  1917. 

This  postal  shows  where  we  (Mrs.  Lee,  Katherine 
Key,  and  I)  are  to-night,  after  a  very  cold  journey 
across  snow-swept  plains  and  hills  from  Char- 
tres.  We  went  to  see  the  Cathedral  again,  and 
it  was  magnificent  in  a  moment's  sunshine  with 
the  dazzling  snow  outside.  We  are  traveling  in 
the  Ford  truck,  Maggie  (so  called  because  she 
was  given  by  the  Magnolia  Committee),  on  our 
way  to  Quimper,  where  the  depot  is  to  be  estab- 
hshed  for  the  distribution  of  hospital  supplies. 

Quimper,  Brittany,  March  12. 

We  are  getting  the  depot  open  slowly.  The 
things  are  untangled  from  the  red  tape  of  the 
railway  station,  and  to-day  we  have  been  to  the 
Board  of  Health. 

We  have  two  adorable  French  soldiers  who  work 
for  us.  They  are  both  from  the  invaded  region, 
—  one  from   Lille.     Both   have  had   operations 

14 


A.  F.  F.  \\  .  Depot  at  Qlimpek 


BRITTANY  AND   ITS  HOSPITALS     15 

lately,  and  one  has  his  head  and  ear  done  up  in  a 
bandage.  The  other  has  his  nose  stuffed  up  with 
cotton  and  has  been  wounded  three  times.  They 
insist  on  working  terribly  hard,  and  it  is  all  we 
can  do  to  keep  them  from  overdoing.  We  pay 
them  two  francs  a  day,  which  seems  little,  but 
is  the  regular  pay.  One  of  them  hesitated  about 
taking  it  at  first,  but  said  that  as  he  had  had  only 
five  cents  a  day  since  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
he  would  take  it,  as  he  needed  it.  He  certainly 
did.  When  he  first  came  to  us  he  looked  woe- 
begone, but  now  he  smiles  and  shaves  and  looks 
a  httle  pinker.  We  gave  him  a  comfort  bag, 
and  he  was  delighted  to  find  a  pair  of  socks  in  it. 
He  said  he  hadn't  any,  as  they  cost  too  much, 
so  we  gave  him  an  extra  pair  and  a  sweater. 
When  he  saw  the  pajamas  that  we  were  unpacking 
he  asked  the  usual  question:  "What  are  they, 
Mademoiselle?"  I  explained  and  asked  him  if 
he  had  a  nightshirt  to  wear  at  the  hospital  (he 
is  still  staying  there)  and  he  said,  no,  so  I  told 
him  to  choose  one.  Having  red  hair,  he  promptly 
chose  a  pale  pink  one  with  bright  pink  facings. 

The  other  man  has  a  Croix  de  Guerre  with  a 
star.  We  asked  him  how  he  got  it,  and  he  ex- 
plained shyly  that  he  was  the  first  to  enter  the 
Fort  de  Douaumont  when  the  French  retook 
it,  during  the  battle  of  Verdun.     He  said  he  was 


16  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

not  wounded  there,  but  at  theChemin  des  Dames, 
which  was  —  "Whew-w-w-w,"  worse  than  any- 
thing he  had  seen  "with  hand-grenades  and  ar- 
tillery you  know,  —  the  longer  the  war  lasts,  the 
better  they  know  how  to  use  those  things."  He 
said  that  at  Verdun  he  was  up  to  his  hips  in  mud 
most  of  the  time,  and  no  one  could  fire  a  gun, 
as  (except  for  the  artillery)  it  was  all  "very  near 
with  grenades."  Now,  he  lifts  crates  for  us  as 
if  they  were  dominoes,  and  washes  the  windows 
till  they  shine  like  crystal. 

Quimper,  Brittany,  March  19,  1917. 

This  is  the  most  lovely  spot  you  ever  saw,  and 
it  is  spring  and  warm.  The  primroses,  and  gorse, 
and  violets,  and  little  daisies,  and  jonquils  are  out, 
and  the  lilac  buds  are  just  bursting  open. 

On  Sunday  we  went  to  Concarneau.  The 
sea  was  the  most  tender  spring  blue.  It  was 
so  peaceful  and  quiet  that  I  could  hardly  be- 
lieve we  were  in  a  Red  Cross  car,  bowling 
along  to  take  supplies  to  two  hospitals  filled 
with  wounded  and  sick  soldiers.  The  roadsides 
were  sprinkled  with  little  farmhouses.  Through 
the  open  doors  of  some  we  saw  the  beautifully 
carved,  but  deadly,  closed,  Breton  beds  in  the 
main  room,  in  others,  very  modern  iron  beds, 
thank  heaven !    All  the  people  were  out  strolling 


BRITTANY  AND   ITS  HOSPITALS     17 

on  the  roads  in  their  picturesque  Sunday  clothes, 
the  women  in  their  immaculate  starched  caps, 
and  the  men  wearing  embroidered  waist-coats 
with  buckles  and  velvet  streamers.  The  children 
are  dressed  exactly  like  the  grown  people,  long 
skirts  and  all.  They  stroll  with  their  cows  and 
horses,  hens  and  pigs,  casually  down  the  road, 
so  we  have  to  be  careful  not  to  go  too  fast.  Every 
now  and  then,  we  pass  a  soldier  on  leave,  with  the 
others.  Once  we  passed  one  of  their  two-wheeled 
vehicles  filled  with  women  in  white  coiffes,  an 
old  man,  and  in  the  middle  a  soldier.  One  of 
the  girls  had  her  arm  around  his  neck,  and  he  had 
his  about  her  waist.  They  were  driving  toward 
the  railway  station. 

When  we  got  to  Concarneau  we  went  first  to 
a  lovely  pink  house ;  it  was  beautiful  against  the 
blue  sea,  and  was  in  the  midst  of  a  box-hedged 
garden,  on  the  top  of  cliffs  overlooldng  the  water. 
On  the  front  gate  was  a  Red  Cross  flag,  and  they 
took  care  of  twenty-five  convalescent  soldiers 
there.  The  soldiers  certainly  must  have  a  serene 
and  peaceful  convalescence.  They  can  fish  from 
the  rocks  and  walk  on  the  beach.  We  gave  them 
some  reclining  chairs  and  left  some  "comfort 
bags"  for  them  (they  call  them  "sacs  surprises  "). 

Mme.  Toiray  SEiid  that  several  days  ago,  she 
was  waked  by  the  sound  of  shooting  on  the  sea, 


18  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

and  a  Norwegian  ship  was  torpedoed  almost 
outside  her  window.  It  seemed  impossible  on 
the  smiling,  shining  blue  sea  that  we  were  looking 
at,  that  seemed  as  harmless  as  at  Manchester. 
They  have  suffered  badly  here  from  submarines. 
In  one  village  there  are  sixty-four  orphans,  whose 
fathers  were  killed  on  the  little  blue-sailed  fishing 
boats,  blown  up  by  those  Boche  submarines. 
They  are  thick  around  these  coasts.  They  tell 
us  that  the  Germans  fire  with  rifles  on  the  sailors 
who  are  clinging  to  the  wreckage.  There  are  also 
mines  about. 

In  another  hospital  that  we  went  to  see,  most 
of  the  patients  were  out,  but  there  were  two  in 
bed,  and  we  gave  them  bags.  They  were  so  ex- 
cited !  Every  time  they  fished  in  the  bags,  and 
drew  out  a  new  little  package,  they  smiled  more 
broadly,  and  one,  a  very  pale  boy  with  huge  blue 
eyes,  was  quite  pink  with  pleasure  when  he  got  his 
last  present.  He  found  an  extraordinary  brush  in 
his  bag,  something  like  a  bottle  brush,  only  twisted 
round  like  a  doughnut.  None  of  us  knew  what 
it  was  for  but,  nothing  daunted,  he  told  us,  in 
his  weak  voice,  aU  the  things  he  was  going  to 
use  it  for,  and  was  much  amused  and  pleased  with 
his  necessity  for  invention. 

In  leaving  supplies  at  the  hospitals,  after  having 
ascertained  the  number  of  wounded,  we  have  to 


BRITTANY  AND   ITS  HOSPITALS     19 

extract  from  the  authorities  what  they  need  by 
asking  questions  about  each  article,  for  they  are 
always  so  afraid  of  imposing  on  us,  that  they  never 
ask  for  enough. 

After  finishing  our  visits  to  the  hospitals,  we 
went  to  see  the  old  town  that  used  to  be  an  island, 
and  is  surrounded  by  a  wall.  It  has  tiny  winding 
streets,  overhanging  and  rickety  houses,  and  arched 
and  carved  doorways  in  aU  kinds  of  odd  little 
corners.  We  went  into  the  church,  and  there, 
under  the  gray  stone  vaulted  roof,  a  hundred  or 
more  women  in  their  white  caps  were  kneeling  in 
silence,  a  few  men  among  them.  Before  the  altar 
was  the  black  pavilion  that  they  have  here  for 
coffins,  but  in  it  was  no  coffin.  The  priest  was 
saying  something  very  low,  and  a  devout  "Amen" 
came  from  the  kneehng  congregation  as  we  en- 
tered. We  stole  out  again.  I  don't  know  whose 
the  funeral  was,  but  it  must  have  been  for  some 
one  from  Concarneau,  who  had  died  away  from 
home. 

Brest,  Finistere,  March  30,  1917. 

Since  we  left  Quimper  we  have  visited  one 
hospital  on  the  way,  at  Chateauhn,  which  is 
quite  a  pretty  town.  There  was  a  ladder  in  the 
locks  for  the  salmon  to  climb  up.  There  were 
only  about  twenty-seven  "blesses"  in  the  hospital, 


20  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

and  we  found  them  in  the  garden,  playing  croquet 
in  the  rain  with  an  ancient  set  sent  by  us.  We 
gave  out  comfort  bags  to  the  men,  and  they  were 
enormously  pleased  as  usual.  One  man  had  no 
name  in  his  bag,  and  was  terribly  upset  to  have 
no  "dame  Americaine"  to  thank.  Therefore  I 
gave  him  the  name  of  Mrs.  Rice  in  Brattleboro, 
Vermont,  to  thank,  and  he  was  thrilled,  and 
wanted  to  know  all  about  her,  where  she  lived, 
etc.  He  was  a  well-educated  boy,  and  actually 
said  he  knew  where  Boston  was.  I  told  him 
Vermont  was  named  by  a  Frenchman,  because  the 
mountains  were  so  green,  which  piece  of  informa- 
tion interested  him  greatly.  The  nicest  man  in 
the  hospital  was  a  mobilized  priest,  who  had  been 
wounded.  He  was  so  excited  over  the  bags, 
and  told  us  that  they  did  a  great  deal  for  the 
morale  of  the  men.  Every  one  tells  that  to  us, 
and  it  can't  be  too  much  emphasized.  Several 
peasant  women,  in  their  little  white  caps  and  black 
dresses,  have  come  to  thank  us  personally  for 
making  their  sons,  in  the  hospitals  near  by,  so 
happy  with  our  presents  of  bags.  One  man  came 
on  his  way  back  to  the  front  to  thank  us.  He  had 
been  out  when  we  gave  the  bags  and  we  had  left  one 
for  him.  Unfortunately  we  were  away  that  day, 
but  his  little,  white-capped  mother  came  a  day  or 
two   later,    all   the   way   from    Concarneau  —  a 


BRITTANY  AND   ITS  HOSPITALS     21 

distance  of  twenty-five  kilometers  —  to  make 
sure  that  we  were  thanked. 

Going  through  Plougastel-Daoulas,  a  tiny  httle 
place,  we  stopped  for  a  moment  to  see  the  church, 
a  very  old  one,  and  a  white-capped  old  woman 
came  running  out  of  a  house  across  the  street  to 
thank  us  for  our  "bonte"  to  her  son,  to  whom  we 
had  given  a  bag.  He  was  at  Benodet,  a  little 
village  by  the  sea,  where  there  is  a  hospital  of 
convalescent  wounded.  No  one  had  been  near 
them  until  we  came.  He  had  written  her  on  some 
of  the  letter-paper  in  the  bag,  and  she  showed 
us  the  "  enveloppe  Americaine  "  as  a  great  ciu-iosity. 
She  said  he  had  written  to  thank  the  "bonne 
dame  Americaine"  whose  name  he  had  found  in 
the  bag.  It  contained  a  picture  of  the  sender's 
house  with  a  vegetable  garden  in  front  of  it,  in 
which  flourished  cabbages,  potatoes,  and  beets. 
Those  vegetables  were  a  real  tangible  link  between 
him  and  the  Iowa  lady.  I  dare  say  she'll  get  a 
letter  from  him  asking  all  kinds  of  questions,  and 
teUing  how  he  managed  his  garden. 

One  little  man  had  lots  of  letter-paper  and 
no  one  to  write  to.  He  was  nearly  in  tears  over 
it,  and  I  gave  him  S.'s  name,  as  I  knew  she'd  be 
sure  to  answer,  and  told  him  she  was  my  sister, 
which  made  her  more  real  to  him.  Re  was  much 
pleased. 


22  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

After  we  had  spent  the  night  at  Chateaulin,  we 
came  on  to  Brest  through  the  lovehest,  hilly, 
wild  country.  We  took  a  country  road,  and  finally 
ended  up  at  a  ferry,  where  we  hobbled  across  the 
river  in  company  with  two  cows,  two  peasants, 
and  a  horse  and  cart.  Two  sailors,  whom  we 
overtook,  told  us  they  were  walking  to  Brest, 
about  eight  kilometers  (five  miles) ,  and  we  asked 
them  if  they  wanted  a  ride.  They  accepted 
joyfully,  and  told  Mrs.  Lee  (all  their  conversation 
was  respectfully  directed  to  her)  that  they  had 
never  been  in  an  automobile  before.  They  cer- 
tainly had  a  novel  experience  going  in  a  Ford 
Red  Cross  camion  on  top  of  bales  of  wool,  jerseys, 
comfort  bags,  etc.  You  should  have  seen  the 
expression  on  the  face  of  the  Octroi  man  when 
he  lifted  up  the  back  flap,  and  saw  two  sailors 
enthroned  on  a  "tas  de  choses."  He  let  us  go  on 
without  looking  any  further. 

When  I  went  to  the  garage  in  the  morning, 
we  found  a  flat  tire.  I  started  to  take  it  off  while 
Katherine  gave  mental  support,  when  we  heard 
a  voice  behind  us  saying,  "You  'ave  'ad  a  mis- 
fortune, 'aven't  you?"  There  was  a  British 
Tommy,  as  large  as  life  and  twice  as  natural. 

He  grabbed  the  tools  away  from  me  and  pro- 
ceeded to  put  the  new  tire  on,  conversing  gayly 
all  the  while,  even  while  pumping.     He  was  very 


BRITTANY  AND   ITS   HOSPITALS     23 

young  and  pink  cheeked.  He  asked  what  we 
were  doing  here.  We  told  him.  "Well,"  he  said, 
"Americans  and  British  is  all  the  same.  I  might 
'ave  been  born  over  on  that  side  of  the  water,  an' 
you  on  this  side,  an'  you'd  'a  been  British  and  me 
Yankee."  (Puff,  pump,  pump.)  "H'America  'as 
to  think  for  awhile  before  she  jumps  in,  she  'as 
so  many  Germans."  (Puff.)  "Pretty  soon  you 
may  be  looking  after  some  of  your  own  boys 
though."  (Pump.)  "I  looks  after  these  Portu- 
guese 'ere.  I  don't  know  exactly  'oo  I'm  under. 
I'm  very  free.  At  the  front  they  supervise  you, 
but  'ere  so  long  as  the  car  runs,  I  can  do  as  I  hke." 
(Pump  pump  —  proud  glance  at  his  perfect 
motor  in  the  corner.)  "I  belongs  to  the  A.  S.  C. 
There's  two  other  Englishmen  'ere  besides  me, 
and  the  officers'  servants.  I  don't  know  'oo 
I'm  under  (that  seemed  to  bother  him)  but  I 
drive  the  colonel  around,  so  I  sticks  to  'im  and 
'e  sticks  to  me."  (Pump,  pump.)  We  asked  him 
where  he'd  been.  "Aow,  around.  I  came  here 
from  Paree  (Paris,  French  touch).  The  road  from 
Paree  is  fuU  of  'airpin  bends.  I  got  ditched  at 
night,  so  I  ran  to  the  nearest  town  and  got  six 
men  to  pull  the  car  out  of  the  ditch,  but  when  I 
started  'er  up,  —  h'out  she  come,  so  they  got  a 
ride  back  to  town,"  etc.,  etc. 

"Well,  now,  I  'opes  you  'ave  good  luck  with 


24  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

that  tire  —  aow,  that's  no  thin'  —  glad  to  'elp, 
you  know.  Now  Fll  brush  up  an'  see  my  sweet- 
'eart.  'Ope  you  never  see  me  in  those  'ospitals 
you  see." 

So  hoping  that  we  should  not  meet  again,  we 
parted. 

Quimper,  Finistere,  April  8,  '17. 

Our  last  day  at  Brest  was  the  most  interesting 
of  all.  We  visited  the  big  marine  hospital,  which 
is  perfect,  and  looks  just  like  a  ship,  another  big 
hospital,  also  admirable,  and  a  third  in  what 
used  to  be  a  jail.  The  Medecin-chef  was  a  dear 
kindly  old  soul,  and  very  efficient,  too.  He  or- 
ganized, cleaned,  and  whitewashed  the  whole 
thing  in  fifteen  days.  It  was  an  excellent  hospital. 
He  showed  us  down  rows  of  whitewashed  rooms, 
some  with  improvised  beds  of  wood,  where  the 
men  slept  who  didn't  have  to  stay  in  bed  all  day. 
The  Medecin-chef  asked  us  if  we  would  be  afraid 
of  the  Boches,  and  when  we  said,  "No,"  he  took 
us  up  to  the  top  of  the  building  to  a  ward  of 
German  prisoners,  guarded  by  a  sailor  with  a 
gun  and  fixed  bayonet.  The  ward  was  very  nice, 
just  like  the  ones  downstairs.  Most  of  the 
prisoners  were  very  young  boys,  one  looked  no 
older  than  sixteen.  They  had  a  special  doctor 
all  to  themselves  (each  floor  has  its  doctor  there), 
and  he  told  us  about  their  different  wounds,  how 


i  p 


BRITTANY  AND   ITS  HOSPITALS     25 

they  were,  etc.,  and  jollied  them  up.  In  one 
corner  of  the  room,  they  had  made  a  little  chapel 
out  of  paper,  that  they  had  cut  out  and  colored, 
and  over  it  was  a  sign  written  in  German,  "Glory 
to  God  in  the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace,  good 
will  toward  men."  Strange,  wasn't  it.^  They 
were  as  fat  and  rosy  as  the  French  wounded 
(who  look  remarkably  healthy,  usually).  They 
have  the  same  food  and  care  as  the  French,  and 
the  same  hberties,  except  that  of  walking  about 
the  town  when  convalescent.  There  was  a  yard, 
however,  where  they  could  go  out. 

As  this  is  Easter  Sunday,  we  went  to  mass  in 
the  cathedral  at  Quimper.  It  was  filled  with 
peasant  women  in  their  best  black  velvet  dresses 
and  white  caps,  children,  in  their  colored  silk 
aprons,  and  peasant  men  in  black  velvet  suits 
embroidered  in  yellow.  Many  soldiers  were  there 
too,  some  on  crutches,  some  with  their  heads 
bandaged,  and  some  with  no  visible  wounds. 
There  were  very  few  townspeople  in  ordinary 
clothes,  like  ourselves.  The  service  was  absolutely 
silent,  except  for  a  httle  bell  that  rang  now  and 
then,  and  a  scraping  when  the  prie-dieu  chairs 
were  turned  around.  Far  outside  on  the  hill  we 
could  hear  a  Imgle  blowing. 

WTien  the  service  was  over,  we  all  went  out  amid 
the  clatter  of  sabots.     What  do  you  think  we 


26  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

saw?  Above  the  "Mairie"  opposite,  a  huge 
French  flag  flung  out.  Under  it  were  the  flags 
of  all  the  AUies,  and  in  the  middle,  taller  than  all 
the  others,  our  own  beloved  stars  and  stripes,  float- 
ing in  the  breeze.  I  don't  believe  any  of  us  have 
ever  been  much  more  thriUed,  though  it  did  give 
one  an  awful,  choky  feeling,  too.  Of  course  we 
went  over  to  the  "Mairie"  and  asked  for  the 
Mayor's  secretary,  a  good  friend  of  ours.  We 
are  the  only  Americans  here,  and  we,  as  Ameri- 
cans, thanked  him,  for  America,  for  putting  our 
flag  with  the  others,  where  for  so  long  we  had 
wanted  it  to  be.  He  was  quite  touched,  and 
quietly  congratulated  us  on  being  allies.  He 
felt  that  our  flag  must  be  with  the  others,  he  said, 
and  he  had  sent  to  Nantes  to  have  one  made.  You 
cannot  buy  flags  like  it  in  France  now,  though 
in  a  few  days  they  hope  to  have  many.  When 
we  went  out,  there  was  another  like  it  over  the 
Prefecture  de  Police,  only  this  time  it  was  alone, 
with  a  French  flag  on  either  side. 

When  we  give  our  bags  to  the  "blesses"  now, 
we  say  they  are  from  their  allies,  "  the  Americans." 
The  soldiers  are  always  very  grave,  they  thank  us 
and  say,  "0  yes,  Mademoiselle  but  it  makes  us 
sad  to  think  that  another  country  must  suffer 
as  we  have,"  and  they  look  at  us  with  a  kind  of 
grave  pity,  when  they  thank  us  for  our  "gen- 
tilesse." 


n 


United  States  Flag  on  Mairie  at  Quimper 


BRITTANY  AND  ITS  HOSPITALS     27 

Quimper,  May  1. 

The  best  way  to  tell  you  about  our  work  here  is 
to  describe  a  visit  to  the  Hopital  Mixte,  as  an 
example,  though  of  course  they  vary. 

We  walked  through  an  arched  doorway,  over 
which  French  and  Red  Cross  flags  were  fluttering, 
and  found  ourselves  in  a  garden  with  buildings 
on  four  sides.  It  is  a  really  pretty  garden,  with 
trees,  box-hedges,  and  paths.  The  pear  trees  and 
camellias  are  all  in  bloom  now.  Everything  is 
a  tender  spring  green,  and  it  seems  as  though 
all  the  white  flowers  in  the  world  were  blooming 
together,  and  trying  to  make  a  kind  of  resurrec- 
tion for  all  the  pure,  brave  souls  who  have  died 
in  the  war.  Strangely  enough,  the  young  re- 
cruits of  the  Class  of  1918,  whom  we  hear  marching 
through  the  towns  at  aU  hours,  and  see  all  day, 
have  uniforms  of  white  unbleached  cotton,  too. 

But  I  was  teUing  you  about  the  Hopital  Mixte. 
A  sister,  in  white  too,  met  us  at  the  door.  We 
asked  for  the  Medecin-chef,  and  afterwards  the 
sisters  showed  us  the  linen  room.  You  never 
saw  such  an  immaculate  place.  No  boots  are 
ever  allowed  to  tread  on  the  shiny  floor,  and  the 
sisters  almost  dance  over  it  on  little  pads,  left 
in  the  doorway  for  the  purpose.  All  the  sheets, 
pillowcases,  socks,  pajamas,  shirts,  and  pieces 
of  old  linen  are  arranged  in  patterns.     We  ex- 


28  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

claimed,  and  said  that  it  must  have  taken  a  long 
time  to  make  it  so  beautiful.  The  sister  smiled, 
and  said,  "No,  not  when  one  is  used  to  it,"  and 
explained  that  this  arrangement  lets  the  air  in 
between  the  piles  of  linen,  which  is  good  for  it. 
It  was  all  darned  and  patched  to  the  last  degree. 
We  saw  some  familiar  day-shirts  with  the  U.  S. 
flags  on  the  pockets,  and  they  seemed  to  consist 
more  of  patches  than  of  original  shirt.  "All  the 
things  have  to  be  mended  every  time  they  are 
washed,"  she  explained.  "There  are  only  four- 
teen sisters  to  do  everything."  "How  many 
wounded  have  you?"  we  asked.  "Two  hundred 
and  fifty,  and  we  expect  another  fifty  to-morrow ; 
we  are  cleaning  an  empty  ward  upstairs  for  them." 
We  told  her  that  we  had  presents  from  America 
for  the  soldiers.  "Already,  from  America,  for 
my  soldiers!" 

As  we  entered  the  first  ward,  she  called  to  the 
soldiers  from  the  doorway,  "Mes  enfants,  here 
are  some  ladies  from  America,  with  presents  for 
you  from  the  United  States!"  Heads  popped 
up  from  battered  pillows  on  lines  of  wobbly  beds, 
and  pale  faces  looked  at  us  with  interest,  as  an 
incident  in  a  life  of  boredom.  A  thin  man,  with 
a  leg  in  a  plaster  cast,  was  the  first  to  receive  a 
surprise  bag.  "Am  I  to  choose,"  he  said,  "one 
little  package,  and  pass  the  bag  along  .^"     You 


BRITTANY  AND   ITS  HOSPITALS     29 

should  have  seen  him  beam  with  pleasure  when  we 
told  him  it  was  all  for  him,  and  that  he  would  find 
within  a  card  from  the  American  lady  who  sent 
the  bag.  They  loved  the  mouth  organs.  A  man 
who  had  been  wounded  twice  before,  whose  Croix 
de  Guerre  and  Medaille  Mihtaire  hung  over 
his  fever  chart,  told  me  he  was  going  to  keep  his 
mouth  organ  for  his  little  boy.  We  asked  him 
where  the  child  was  ;  he  said  he  did  not  know,  but 
he  had  read  in  the  paper  that  morning  that  his 
village  had  been  hberated  from  the  Germans.  He 
had  had  no  news  of  his  family  until  a  month  ago. 
Then  he  learned  that  his  wife  had  died,  and  his 
Httle  boy  was  safe  with  his  grandparents.  His 
family  did  not  know  where  he  was,  nor  he,  where 
they  were,  but  such  was  his  faith  in  France  and 
all  she  undertook,  that  he  knew  that  there,  in  that 
far  away  hospital,  his  little  boy  would  come  to 
him,  somehow.  He  would  keep  his  American 
gift,  the  httle  mouth-organ,  safe  until  he  saw 
his  boy.  Do  you  wonder  they  thank  us  for  those 
bagsP  The  doctors  tell  us  they  are  wonderful 
for  the  morale  of  their  soldiers.  Long  hours  of 
lying  in  bed  slip  away  as  they  play  the  games 
found  in  the  bags,  or  exchange  and  examine  each 
others'  presents.  Above  all  they  love  penknives, 
pipes,  socks,  and  razors.  They  hke  raffia,  and 
it  is  hard  to  get  it  here.     Send  bright  colors,  they 


30  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

make  such  pretty  things  of  it,  and  it  helps  to 
pass  many  a  weary  hour.  A  soldier  can  work  with 
it,  flat  on  his  back,  when  he  cannot  hold  a  puzzle 
or  any  game  in  his  hand. 

We  saw  one  hospital  of  Senegalese ;  there  were 
about  two  hundred  of  them,  all  having  had  frozen 
feet.  I  never  saw  such  black  people,  and  most 
of  them  are  huge.  They  say  the  Germans  are 
very  much  afraid  of  them.  The  French  put  a 
few  of  their  own  French  soldiers  in  with  them, 
to  show  that  they  have  the  same  treatment  as 
the  French.  The  doctor  said  he  had  an  awful 
time  managing  them,  as  they  don't  care  whether 
they  sleep  in  bed,  or  on  the  floor,  also  when  they 
are  out  in  the  garden,  if  they  feel  too  hot,  they 
shed  their  clothes  and  promenade  with  nothing 
on,  whereas  the  bushes  are  clad  in  promiscuous 
shirts  and  trousers. 

Quimper,  May  11,  1917. 

The  Lieutenant-Colonel  of  this  district  is  most 
kind,  —  though  very  fiery,  too.  There  is  nothing 
he  hasn't  done  for  us.  You  should  have  seen 
him  inspect  the  depot.  He  grabbed  the  smallest 
pair  of  blue  underdrawers  from  a  shelf,  held  it 
up  against  himself  and  said:  "Rather  small, 
ladies."  Then  he  grabbed  a  shirt  and  said  it 
was  much  better  than  any  he  had  ever  had.     He 


%:^ 


BRITTANY  AND   ITS  HOSPITALS     31 

looked  through  everything  and  was  enchanted. 
Then  he  sat  down  and  asked  us  questions,  taking 
notes  of  answers,  and  talked  to  us,  giving  us  in- 
formation and  advice  as  to  how  we  should  work. 

I  happened  to  mention  to  the  Colonel  that  I 
had  a  filleul  who  had  not  had  leave  for  a  long 
time.  The  Colonel  wrote  his  Captain  and  asked 
him  to  let  him  come  here  on  leave.  Wasn't 
that  kind,  when  he  has  all  Quimper  to  manage  ? 
My  filleul  is  a  strong  looking  man,  shorter  than  I 
am,  with  immense  feet,  and  in  civil  life  is  a  potter. 
He  is  intelligent,  with  a  sense  of  humor,  but  very 
shy  and  so  afraid  of  doing  anything  wrong.  He 
had  had  bronchitis  and  the  Colonel  told  me  to 
bring  him  to  see  him,  and  that  he  would  look 
after  him.  The  Colonel  was  so  nice.  He  called 
my  filleul  "tu"  and  "mon  brave  gargon"  at 
once,  and  asked  him  about  his  family.  Filleul 
told  him  they  were  behind  the  German  hues  and 
said  he  had  heard  once,  through  a  prisoner,  that  his 
wife  was  well.  The  Colonel  was  so  sympathetic 
that  all  three  of  us  were  on  the  verge  of  tears. 
Then  as  I  was  going  away  he  told  him  to  come  and 
see  him  in  the  evenings.  He  asked  him  how  his 
regiment  in  Alsace  was,  and  whether  the  young 
boys  do  well,  and  my  filleul  answered  that  they  do. 
My  filleul  brought  some  trench  bread  with  him, 
awful  stuff  by  the  time  it  got  to  me.     He  said  it 


32  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

felt  so  strange  to  be  in  bed  that  the  first  night  he 
hardly  slept.  Where  he  had  been,  at  one  time, 
they  had  to  use  ice  instead  of  water,  and  had 
only  half-cooked  beans.  They  didn't  do  much 
fighting  because  the  Boches  opposite  them  were 
only  boys  of  the  1918  class.  "They  were  only 
kids,  so  when  they  were  hungry,  we  gave  them 
bread."  I  asked  him  if  the  Germans  were  brave 
and  he  said,  "They  certainly  were  at  Verdun." 
There  his  beloved  Captain  Thorrel  was  killed 
beside  him.  He  was  hit  on  the  helmet  and  was 
buried  there.  The  soldiers  called  him  "Pere 
Thorrel"  and  adored  him. 

During  this  interval  the  writer  went  to 
Verdun  and  was  in  Paris  for  a  few  weeks, 
returning  to  Brittany  about  the  middle 
of  June. 

Brest,  Finistere,  July  13,  1917. 

We  have  been  to  see  some  tuberculosis  hospitals. 
There  are  four  hundred  patients  living  in  what 
used  to  be  five  small  summer  hotels  by  the  sea. 
Some  of  the  soldiers  have  been  there  since  the 
beginning  of  the  war,  and  they  have  no  women 
nurses,  and  no  women  are  allowed  even  to  go 
into  the  wards  to  clean.  The  soldiers  are  taken 
care  of  by  the  doctor,  who  does  his  best,  and  by 


BRITTANY  AND   ITS  HOSPITALS     33 

Anamites  from  French  Indo-China,  who  under- 
stand httle  French  and  speak  a  kind  of  Chinese 
patois,  —  you  may  imagine  their  ideas  of  hy- 
giene, —  if  you  can !  There  has  been  no  oper- 
ating-room (they  are  bone  cases)  though  now 
one  is  being  installed. 

The  soldiers  are  of  all  kinds,  from  peasants  to 
men  of  education.  They  are  all  thrown  together, 
"until  we  die,"  as  one  of  them  expressed  it. 
Until  a  fev/  months  ago  they  were  all  depressed, 
cold,  bored,  badly  nourished,  and  had  nothing 
to  do  but  sit  about  waiting  to  die.  Many  of 
them  are  curable  cases,  too.  Now  they  have  a 
Soldiers'  Club  formed  by  the  Vicomtesse  de  X. 
and  her  sister.  She  is  a  charming  young  French- 
woman (whose  husband,  by  the  way,  is  a  "simple 
soldat"  in  the  trenches).  There,  under  her 
guidance  they  sing,  play  such  games  as  are  pos- 
sible (they  have  nothing  to  play  games  with), 
and  thanks  to  a  kind  American,  may  each  have  a 
cup  of  cocoa  and  a  piece  of  war-bread,  spread  with 
jam.  Then  they  go  home  to  their  dismal  damp 
barracks  of  hotels.  The  cheering  effect  it  has 
produced  is  wonderful,  but  the  soldiers  want 
books,  serious  books.  They  have  none  what- 
ever except  a  few  novels,  and  they  are  clamoring 
for  memoirs  and  books  of  travel.  Some  of  them, 
especially  those  from  the  "invaded  country,"  had 


34    BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

libraries  of  their  own  at  home.  "Nous  voici," 
one  said,  "we  cannot  move  away; — ^  but  if 
we  could  only  travel  in  imagination !  Most  of 
all  we  want  books  of  travel,  Mademoiselle,  and 
adventure,  biographies  too.  We  have  a  few 
novels,  it  is  true,  but  we  have  read  them  over  and 
over.     We  should  so  like  to  use  our  minds !" 

Some  of  them  had  war-stained  uniforms  that 
were  scarcely  warm.  We  could  get  them  some 
other  clothes,  but  they  asked  for  books  ! 

If  enough  books  could  be  collected  they  could 
start  a  traveling  library  between  all  the  tuberculosis 
hospitals  in  this  region.  You  might  put  an  appeal 
in  the  paper  to  raise  money  for  books  for  them.^ 

At  St.  Anne  d'Auray  we  saw  a  marvelous 
tuberculosis  hospital  all  out  of  doors.  The  very 
sick  cases  are  isolated  and  the  groups  of  patients 
are  separated  according  to  the  stage  of  the  disease. 
The  Medecin-Chef ,  Dr.  Besangon,  has  had  an  out- 
of-door  sun-shed  built  for  them,  all  of  cement  with 
rounded  corners.  One  man  does  nothing  but 
whitewash  aU  the  time  ;  when  he  finishes  he  begins 
again  on  the  room  he  did  first.  The  patients  are 
never  in  the  rooms  except  at  night.  Those  who 
are  weU  enough  do  a  little  work  in  the  garden, 
and  there  are  also  out-of-door  games  for  them. 

Mrs.   Post  is   doing  wonderful  work  for  the 

1  This  was  done,  and  met  with  a  most  generous  response. 


BRITTANY  AND   ITS   HOSPITALS     35 

tuberculous  civilians  in  the  neighborhood  of  Mor- 
laix.  She  has  French  nurses  staying  with  her, 
who  visit  the  patients  in  their  homes.  This  edu- 
cates the  families,  and  the  tubercular  children 
have  shown  so  much  improvement  that  the  people 
think  it  almost  a  miracle,  do  anything  she  says, 
and  bring  their  friends.  She  does  not  try  to 
make  them  do  too  many  things  at  once,  but  studies 
the  natural  habits  of  the  people  and  adapts  them 
to  corrective  methods  as  much  as  possible,  with- 
out changing  them.  For  that  reason  she  has 
French  nurses  almost  entirely,  as  their  tradition 
of  nursing  is  the  care  of  the  patients  in  the  home. 
She  is  now  adapting  a  wonderful  old  place  for 
a  hospital  for  the  study  and  cure  of  tuberculosis. 
It  has  only  fifty  beds  and  they  are  for  mihtary 
patients,  but  the  hospital  mainly  consists  of  the 
grounds,  where  the  people  come  to  be  treated 
during  the  day,  and  go  home  at  night.  In  this 
way  the  patients  are  watched  and  at  the  same 
time  their  famihes  at  home  see  the  results  and 
are  educated.  She  seems  to  be  doing  a  really 
wonderful  work,  and  one  that  wiU  last.  Mrs. 
Whitney  Warren  has  endowed  the  hospital. 

Quimper,  July  17,  1917. 

Here  I  sit  at  the  desk  in  the  Quimper  depot, 
w£iiting  for  something  to  happen  (Maggie's  lack 


36  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

of  rear  axle  having  paralyzed  our  distributing 
facilities).  I  am  surrounded  by  religious  tracts 
and  chewing  gum,  Wrigley's.  The  reason  is  that 
they  come  in  comfort  bags.  The  French  govern- 
ment disapproves  of  the  first  article,  and  the  all- 
confiding  stomach  of  the  poilu  of  the  second,  so 
we  have  orders  to  extract  these  two  things  from 
the  bags. 

What  do  you  think  of  my  coming  home  for 
a  few  months  and  then  coming  back  here.^  I 
don't  dare  to  think  of  it.  It  would  be  wonder- 
ful, but  I'm  afraid  it  would  be  hard  to  come  back 
to  France,  not  to  mention  the  submarines  one 
might  meet  en  route.  Anyway,  there  are  times 
when  I'd  rather  die  a  few  miles  nearer  home 
than  remain  on  distant  dry  land.  Luckily  that 
spirit  doesn't  strike  one  often. 

The  Brattleboro  Committee  has  sent  the  kind 
of  thing  needed  here  most,  —  that  is  shirts,  socks, 
etc.,  in  fact,  clothes.  There  is  a  crying  need  for 
those  felt  slippers,  too.  Every  one  asks  for  them. 
They  are  used  in  the  house  as  they  are  quiet  and 
clean,  and  when  the  men  go  out  they  put  sabots 
on  over  them.  I  have  a  great  respect  for  sabots. 
In  winter  they  are  warm  and  dry.  The  soldiers 
wear  them  in  the  trenches  often,  and  the  doctors 
say  they  save  many  a  poilu  from  having  frozen 
feet. 


BRITTANY  AND   ITS   HOSPITALS     37 

It  is  funny  to  see  how  fashionable  it  is  now  to 
be  American.  We  are  quite  the  "dernier  cri." 
All  the  hats  of  the  latest  style  in  the  windows, 
for  instance,  are  of  our  army  shape,  only  in  varied 
colors.  The  little  boys  run  out  and  ask  you  what 
the  American  flag  is  like.  The  peasant  women 
always  smile  and  nod  when  they  find  that  we  are 
*'Americaines." 

One  day  on  one  of  our  trips  we  were  taking  tea 
in  what  had  been  a  garage  (originally,  I  suppose, 
a  barn,  as  it  had  a  thatched  roof).  Two  Canadian 
officers  who  passed  us  had  said,  "Bong  jour, 
Madame,"  and  then  discovering  suddenly  that 
we  spoke  English  came  over  to  explain  that  that 
was  all  the  French  they  knew.  They  said  "caw- 
fee"  to  the  waiter  several  times  very  slowly  and 
he  brought  it.  One  turned  out  to  be  from  Minne- 
sota, one  of  the  23,000  Americans  who  had  en- 
listed in  the  Canadian  Army  when  the  war  broke 
out,  because  he  was  "sick  of  sittin'  round  and 
seein'  us  do  no  thin'."  The  Minnesota  man  had 
been  a  lumberman  at  home,  and  had  been  sent 
here  to  cut  down  trees.  He  let  loose  a  little  "hot 
stuff"  on  what  he  thought  of  French  methods. 
Can't  you  see  him  P  —  huge  and  straight,  and 
sun-burned,  used  to  cutting  down  any  trees  he 
wanted,  acres  at  a  time,  now  confronted  with  the 
French  method  of  signing  papers   "every  time 


S8  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

you  cut  down  a  match-stick."  The  other  said 
it  did  not  matter  what  you  cut  down,  so  long  as 
it  was  the  best  way  to  Hck  the  Germans,  but  he 
considered  that  the  French  did  have  a  Special 
Providence  watching  over  them.  "Yes,"  said 
the  one  from  Minnesota,  "they  have,  and  you 
can  bet  Providence  is  going  to  see  them  right 
through  to  the  end,  too."  Then  followed  a  dis- 
sertation on  the  general  "messiness"  of  France, 
putting  their  barns  and  their  houses  "plumb 
together"  so  you  didn't  know  which  was  which. 
"When  I  first  came  over,"  he  said,  "I  blushed 
till  I  had  no  more  blushin'  in  me,  at  their  mes- 
siness, and  lack  of  system,  and  general  habit  of 
livin' ;  and  now  I  keep  right  on  blushin'.  Look  at 
us,  takin'  tea  in  a  barn!"  Then  we  left,  and  he 
ordered  mixed  creme  de  menthe  and  another 
liqueur. 

At  a  French  port,  where  our  work  took  us  a  few 
days  ago,  we  went  to  the  American  consul's  to  ask 
a  question.  While  we  were  there  two  torpedoed 
captains  came  in  to  get  papers  to  enable  them 
to  go  home  on  liners,  as  their  merchant  ships  had 
been  sunk  near  there.  Their  men  had  got  off 
safely,  but  one  man  had  hurt  himself  falling  into 
the  boat,  as  a  shell  had  cut  the  line  while  he  was 
letting  himself  down.  One  of  the  captains  was 
greatly  agitated  because  he  had  gone,  according 


BRITTANY  AND   ITS  HOSPITALS    39 

to  directions,  to  a  certain  latitude  and  longitude, 
where  he  was  told  he  would  be  met  by  a  convoy, 
but  was  met  instead  by  a  submarine.  He  was 
also  angry  because  he  had  been  sunk  by  shell- 
fire,  not  by  a  torpedo,  and  had  not  had  a  chance 
to  shell  back.  The  other  man,  who  had  been 
very  quiet,  and  had  said  that  he  had  had  a  "sailin' 
vessel,"  interposed  to  say  that  wasn't  the  point; 
—  the  point  was  that  they  had  lost  their  cargoes, 
one  of  flour,  the  other  of  machine  oil,  and  those 
cargoes  were  needed.  He  hadn't  any  gun  to 
&ce  back  with  either. 

The  next  day,  coming  up  on  the  train,  we  got 
by  chance  into  the  same  compartment  with  the 
two  Captains ;  the  one  who  had  been  so  agitated 
could  not  understand  French,  and  was  much 
excited  over  getting  his  men  settled  on  the  train. 
The  quiet  one  twinkled  a  smile  at  us  out  of  his 
very  blue  eyes  and  said  nothing.  He  was  a  big 
man  with  a  slow  smile.  Beside  him  was  another 
man  with  his  head  done  up  in  a  bandage.  The 
CaptEiin  leaned  over,  and  asked  the  bandaged 
one  if  his  head  ached,  patting  him  on  the  knee 
when  he  answered  that  it  did.  It  developed 
that  the  head  had  a  piece  of  shell  in  it.  The  big 
Captain  came  from  "The  State  o'  Maine,  near 
Bangor,"  and  had  been  torpedoed  before,  on 
another  "sedhn"'  vessel.     They  hadn't  had  any 


40  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

contraband  on  board,  but  the  Austrian  sub- 
marine with  German  officers,  which  sank  her, 
wanted  her  provisions,  —  a  nine  months'  supply, 
—  and  her  chronometer  too,  as  they  are  short  of 
chronometers  in  Germany.  The  captain  said 
that  the  Germans  on  the  submarines  were  an 
excitable  lot,  —  ihey  had  taken  him  on  board  the 
submarine  both  limes  he  was  torpedoed,  to  boast 
to  him  about  their  engines.  With  that  he  re- 
lapsed into  silence,  then  added  that  there  was 
about  as  much  danger  of  being  submarined  as 
of  being  hit  by  lightning.  That  is  what  he  had 
"told  his  folks,"  but  the  fu-st  time  it  happened 
they  had  to  know  of  it,  because  it  was  in  the 
newspapers,  and  when  they  heard  of  it  they  were 
"kinder  s'prised."  We  asked  if  his  family  knew 
that  he  had  been  hit  this  time.^  He  said  "No," 
he  had  cabled  them  that  all  had  landed  safely  ! ! 


CHAPTER  III 
A  Visit  to  Verdun 

Paris,  May  17,  1917. 

In  my  last  letter  I  told  you  that  we  might  get  a 
chance  to  go  to  Verdun.  Now  that  we  have 
been  there,  I  can  hardly  believe  it,  it  all  happened 
so  quickly  and  was  over  so  soon.  Yet  while  it 
lasted  it  seemed  a  thousand  years,  and  does  now. 

Mrs.  Lee,  Katherine,  and  I  got  our  papers  to 
go  Monday  at  noon  and  started  off  at  once  in 
Maggie.  We  used  the  ordinary  road  maps  of 
France,  and  were  told  we  could  take  any  route 
we  wanted,  so  we  went  from  Paris  to  Meaux,  to 
Chateau-Thierry,  to  Epernay,  to  Chalons-sur- 
Marne,  to  St.  Menehould,  and  by  Clermont-en- 
Argonne  to  Verdun. 

I  have  seldom  seen  anything  as  beautiful  as  the 
spring  in  France.  We  went  for  miles  on  straight 
roads  between  rows  of  feathery  trees,  with  fields 
of  brilliant  green  on  either  side.  No  wonder  the 
Germans  thought  it  worth  fighting  for.  There 
didn't  seem  to  be  a  single  dead  blade  of  grass  or 

41 


42  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

twig  of  tree,  or  a  stone  where  it  shouldn't  be. 
The  sky  was  the  most  heavenly  blue,  and  the  fields 
and  woods  were  filled  with  hyacinths  and  violets 
and  primroses  and  hlies  of  the  valley  and  with  the 
songs  of  birds.  Sometimes,  instead  of  going 
through  green  trees  we  went  through  vaJleys  of 
pink  apple  blossoms  that  almost  overpowered  you 
with  their  sweet  smell  of  spring.  Everything 
seemed  jubilantly  full  of  life. 

Then,  all  of  a  sudden,  perhaps  an  hour  from 
Paris,  we  came  on  a  grave  by  the  roadside,  a  rustic 
cross,  with  a  little  red  white  and  blue  cockade 
on  it,  and  "Patrie"  on  the  httle  fence  that  sur- 
rounded it.  After  that,  we  came  on  another  and 
another,  then  on  a  Httle  group,  and  finally  to 
mounds  with  large  crosses  on  them,  all  the  same. 
Some  had  the  number  of  the  regiment  on  them  and 
a  very  few  the  names  of  the  soldiers.  All  the 
time  we  were  driving  along  the  perfect  quiet 
roads  under  the  blue  shadows  of  the  trees,  with 
great  splotches  of  sunhght  filtering  through  them. 

When  we  got  to  Epernay  we  stopped  the  motor 
to  see  if  there  was  a  flat  tire,  and  heard  the  guns 
for  the  first  time.  I  suppose  we  could  have  heard 
them  before  that,  but  the  Ford  was  going  so  we 
didn't.  They  sounded  hke  giant  fire-crackers 
on  the  Foiurth  of  July,  only  they  went  off  very 
close  together. 


"Maggie"  in  Center  of  a  Ruined  Town 


A  VISIT  TO  VERDUN  43 

But  before  that,  we  saw  our  first  devastated 
village.  It  was  a  little  place.  Some  of  the  houses 
had  no  roofs,  and  showed  signs  of  fire,  a  few 
trees  were  twisted  about  and  dead.  The  gateposts 
of  one  house  were  intact  and  the  steps  gone. 
Two  huge  hlac  bushes  were  in  bloom  on  either 
side  of  them  and  the  wistaria  vines  in  full  flower 
over  the  doorway,  —  that  led  into  nothing.  Other 
houses  were  occupied  and  we  saw  a  few  women  and 
children  and  many  soldiers  lodged  there.  Red 
Cross  flags  stuck  out  of  some  doorways. 

In  the  fields  they  were  replanting  the  grape- 
vines, and  in  some  places  they  looked  like  forests 
of  Httle  sticks.  In  other  places  men  were  plough- 
ing. In  those  fields  we  saw  httle  red  and  white 
flags  for  no  apparent  reason.  They  were,  how- 
ever, to  mark  unexploded  sheUs  and  the  plows 
gave  them  a  wide  berth. 

After  that  we  began  to  pass  convoys  of  wagons 
and  soldiers  marching. 

About  half -past  seven  we  arrived  at  Chalons- 
sur-Marne,  where  we  spent  the  night  in  a  large 
hotel  with  beautiful  beds,  and  we  had  an  ex- 
ceUent  supper.  When  I  went  up  to  bed  I  neg- 
lected to  pull  the  heavy  curtains  quite  close  and 
a  ray  of  light  penetrated  into  the  courtyard 
below.  Before  I  knew  it  the  landlady  had  come 
flying  upstairs  and  asked  me  to  close  the  cur- 


44  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

tains  tight  as  "Taubes"  came  nearly  every  night 
and  dropped  bombs.  Some  had  come  the  night 
before  and  had  dropped  three  bombs,  but  no  one 
was  hurt.  None  came  that  night,  however,  and 
we  were  all  so  sleepy  that  unless  they  had  dropped 
on  us  I  don't  suppose  we  should  have  known  it, 
though  the  landlady  swore  we  would.  She  told 
us  that  the  German  officers  had  stayed  in  her 
hotel  and  were  "assez  gentils" ;  they  were  there 
for  ten  days,  had  brought  their  own  cook,  and 
requisitioned  everything,  but  paid  for  it. 

The  next  day  was  the  longest  I  have  ever  lived. 
We  started  out  at  eight  o'clock  and  went  to  the 
*'Mairie"  to  see  whether  we  could  get  some 
*'Affiches"  that  are  posted  on  the  houses  there. 
They  read  "Cave  de  refuge  en  cas  de  bombarde- 
ment"  and  are  stuck  on  all  houses  with  cellars. 
Those  houses  are  never  allowed  to  lock  their 
doors.  We  couldn't  get  any  to  take  home,  but 
hope  they  can  send  us  some. 

When  we  were  in  the  street  a  man  came  along 
with  a  drum  and  banged  on  it  and  every  one  col- 
lected around  him.  We  thought  some  thrilling 
war  news  was  about  to  be  announced,  instead  of 
which  he  read  some  regulations  about  muzzling 
dogs,  which  was  a  disappointment. 

After  that  thrill  we  started.  The  road  was 
infested  with  wagons  and  trucks  and  gun  carriages. 


A  VISIT  TO  VERDUN  45 

The  soldiers  all  looked  at  us  as  a  fearful  curiosity 
and  got  out  of  our  way  as  fast  as  possible.  Some 
yelled  after  us,  "C'est  bien  ga!"  You  know 
Maggie  has  ''  Coniite  Americain  pour  les  Blesses 
Frangais"  on  her  side.  Others  didn't  say  any- 
thing but  gazed  open-mouthed,  and  others  cheered 
and  threw  their  caps  in  the  air  or  waved  their 
casques.  They  were  all  very  healthy  looking 
and  clean  and  very  picturesque  in  their  horizon- 
blue  uniforms,  especially  those  on  horseback,  for 
nearly  every  one  had  stuck  a  spray  of  white  or 
purple  lilac  in  his  helmet  or  his  coat,  and  all  the 
horses'  bridles  and  harnesses  were  trimmed  with 
either  Ulacs,  lihes  of  the  valley,  or  primroses. 
Even  the  gray  automobile  trucks  had  huge  bunches 
of  lilacs  on  them,  and  the  men  marching  on  foot 
looked  like  the  forest  in  Macbeth  coming  to  meet 
you,  only  instead  of  trees  there  were  flowers. 

Just  as  we  entered  the  town  a  gendarme  hopped 
out  of  a  little  box  by  the  side  of  the  road,  and 
waved  a  red  flag  at  us.  He  asked  for  our  papers, 
which  we  gave  him  to  look  at,  and  he  evaporated 
into  a  little  house  to  copy  them  down,  while  we 
asked  a  haggard  old  woman  for  some  water  for 
Maggie's  radiator.  Coming  down  the  street, 
what  should  we  see  but  the  familiar  and  immac- 
ulate uniform  of  an  American  Ambulance  boy ! 
He  stopped,  grinned,  took  off  his  hat,  said,  "How 


46  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

do  you  do"  and  went  down  the  road  at  double 
quick  time.  In  half  a  second,  back  he  came 
with  another  boy.  They  both  stopped  and 
blushingly  asked  if  they  could  do  anything  for 
us.  Our  oil  was  getting  low,  so  I  asked  if  we 
could  have  some.  They  said  they'd  give  us 
everything  they  had,  oil,  gasoline,  themselves 
as  guides.  The  gendarme  having  finished  with 
our  papers,  we  therefore  drove  around  the  corner 
to  where  they  were.  There  were  the  neat  little 
Ford  ambulances  all  in  a  row.  The  section  leader 
nearly  fell  out  of  an  upstairs  window  when  we 
drove  in  and  all  the  boys  came  running  out  to 
see  us.  I  told  them  the  oil  leaked  below  and  im- 
mediately four  pairs  of  gallant  feet  were  seen 
waving  from  beneath  the  car.  They  all  wanted 
to  be  detailed  to  "show  us  'round"  and  finally 
one  man  got  it,  a  Professor  from  Cornell. 

We  wanted  to  see  a  Poste  de  Secours  so  we  went 
off  on  a  most  atrocious  road  of  mud  and  horrid 
little  railroad  tracks.  All  around  us  were  barbed 
wire  entanglements,  some  high  and  some  low. 
The  kind  they  dread  the  most  is  about  knee  high, 
because  the  artillery  can't  cut  it  easily.  There 
were  also  barricades  of  it  to  pull  across  the  road 
and  stake  down.  Suddenly  we  came  to  the  top 
of  a  hill,  and  on  one  side  of  the  road  was  a  kind 
of  fish-net  filled  with  moss,  but  so  thin  that  you 


A  VISIT  TO  VERDUN  47 

could  see  through  it.  It  was  a  screen,  and  with- 
out it  we  would  have  been  in  full  sight  of  the 
enemy.  Mr.  Stanley  said  to  go  quickly,  so  I 
did.  All  was  perfect  silence  but  for  the  buzzing 
and  rattling  of  Maggie,  and  we  could  see  on 
the  blue  hill  opposite  streaks  of  white,  which  were 
the  German  trenches. 

I  forgot  to  say  that  the  country  there  is  quite 
hilly  and  looks  like  that  eiround  Brattleboro, 
only  there  are  fewer  trees  and  more  cultivated 
land. 

Every  now  and  then  we  passed  shell  holes  in 
the  fields,  and  once  we  went  over  one  in  the  road 
that  had  come  that  night  and  hadn't  yet  been 
mended.  We  then  went  through  a  village  that 
had  once  been.  Mr.  Stanley  said  it  was  a  hot 
corner,  and  it  was  screened  on  all  sides  and  con- 
sisted of  one  twisted  tree,  a  lilac  bush  in  bloom, 
and  grass  growing  up  among  innumerable  stones, 
—  nothing  else. 

We  then  went  into  the  woods  again,  beautiful 
woods  on  the  side  of  a  hill.  There  were  holes 
in  the  hillside  all  along  at  intervals  and  out  of 
them  came  numerous  blue-clad  soldiers,  all  grin- 
ning and  excited  at  seeing  women  there.  Mr. 
Stanley  said  that  these  were  palatial  abris  (dug- 
outs). Of  course  the  soldiers  all  wanted  to 
show  us  around  and   asked  us  to  drink  some 


48  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

coffee  with  them.  We  did  go  into  one  dugout. 
It  was  quite  nice,  with  a  table,  mirror,  and  beds 
in  tiers  hke  a  sleeping  car.  Behind  it  was  another 
room  with  more  beds,  and  behind  that  still 
another,  where  they  retired  when  the  bombard- 
ment was  particularly  hot.  We  gave  them  ciga- 
rettes and  took  their  photographs,  which  was 
quite  a  piece  of  work  as  there  were  hundreds  of 
them  by  that  time,  and  all  of  them  wanted  to 
be  in  the  picture.  We  could  think  of  nothing 
but  the  "Country  of  the  Dwarfs,"  as  all  the  way 
along  men  would  keep  popping  out  of  the  holes 
in  the  side  of  the  hills. 

Finally  we  went  up  over  the  top  of  a  hill  — 
after  having  photographed  a  man  being  shaved 
with  about  fifty  companions  around  him, —  then 
along  another  screened  road  to  a  town.  There 
was  nothing  there  but  one  big  tree  and  three  sides 
of  a  little  church.  The  rest  was  trenches  and 
stones,  so  razed  to  the  ground  that  you  would 
never  have  known  that  it  had  been  a  town  in 
the  past.  Mr.  Stanley  had  gone  to  sleep  under 
that  tree  the  day  before  and  had  been  awakened 
by  a  shell  landing  in  its  upper  branches.  Another 
had  landed  that  morning.  In  a  little  recess  we 
found  a  Ford  Ambulance  and  in  it  a  boy  writing 
a  letter.  He  grinned  broadly  and  hopped  down 
from  the  seat  to  meet  us. 


A  VISIT   TO  VERDUN  49 

They  then  asked  us  if  we  wished  to  see  No 
Man's  Land.  We  said  "Yes,"  of  course,  and 
we  dimbed  up  a  httle  hill  and  looked  over  the 
top.  Mr.  Stanley  lold  us  not  to  bunch  together 
too  much,  as  "they"  could  sec  us  and  we  were 
within  mitrailleuse  and  rifle  range.  There  was 
No  Man's  Land.  Only  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
away  were  the  German  trenches.  No  Man's 
Land  was  green  and  filled  with  sunlight  and  the 
birds  were  singing  in  it,  —  but  there  was  in  it  also 
a  wide  stretch  of  barbed  wire  and  some  gray  dead 
trees  with  every  twig  standing  out  against  the 
blue  hills  beyond.  On  the  ground  a  few  feet  away 
was  a  large  shell.  They  told  us  to  leave  it  alone 
as  it  might  explode.  It  was  a  "silent  Austrian" 
which  is  much  dreaded  as  it  doesn't  make  any 
noise  until  it  explodes.  It  had  evidently  landed 
there  during  the  night. 

After  we'd  walked  around  there  a  little,  we 
went  along  another  fearfully  muddy  road.  We 
saw  some  new  shell  holes  and  jumped  out  and 
got  some  pieces  of  shell,  though  Mr.  Stanley  told 
us  to  keep  the  motor  going.  Then  we  got  into  the 
woods  again,  on  a  perfect  road,  and  drove  along 
until  we  came  to  a  little  log  cabin  with  a  Red 
Cross  flag  on  it  and  a  doctor  standing  out  to  greet 
us.  He  let  us  come  in  and  showed  us  his  dressing 
station,  rough  but  clean,  with  bandages  and  bottles 


50  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

all  around  the  walls.  Outside  he  had  a  mother 
dog  and  some  darling,  fat,  wobbly  puppies,  and 
two  little  wild  boars  that  he  had  tamed,  whose 
photograph  we  took  with  him.  He  called  them 
by  grunting  like  a  pig,  and  crying,  "Viens, — 
ti-ti — viens!"  They  wouldn't  stay  still,  so  he 
grabbed  one  and  held  it.  You  never  heard  such 
squeals.  I  should  think  every  Roche  for  miles 
around  would  have  heard  it.  Then  he  gave  us 
some  gas  masks  as  he  said  we  ought  to  have  them. 
He  seemed  to  have  quite  a  collection  of  things, 
extra  helmets,  etc.  A  man  was  having  his  eye 
dressed,  but  otherwise  there  were  no  wounded. 

Ry  that  time  it  was  one  o'clock  and  we  went 
back  and  left  Mr.  Stanley.  Then  we  went  on, 
along  the  silent,  beautiful  road,  every  now  and 
then  passing  groups  of  soldiers  decorated  with 
lilacs,  and  sitting  by  the  roadside  eating  bread 
and  drinking  wine  out  of  their  canteens. 

When  we  got  to  the  next  place  I  never  imagined 
there  could  be  such  desolation.  Not  a  house  was 
left  standing,  all  were  knocked  to  bits  by  the 
shells;  the  church  was  in  ruins  and  the  altar 
knocked  crooked,  with  a  huge  hole  in  it.  There 
was  no  roof  to  it  nor  to  any  house  in  the  whole 
town.  Yet  on  walls  were  still  left  the  names  of 
the  streets  and  the  signs  to  the  next  town,  "Ver- 
dun 29  Kilometers,  Metz  —  K."     The  curtains 


Pet  Baby  Wild  Boar 


A  VISIT  TO  VERDUN  51 

were  still  hanging  on  some  windows,  with  the 
glass  still  in  them,  and  pieces  of  kitchen  stoves, 
shoes,  beds,  and  some  furniture  were  strewn  over 
and  among  the  stones.  In  one  place  a  cupboard 
had  had  the  sides  ripped  down  and  a  pile  of 
bottles  were  stiU  intact  on  some  shelves.  Yet 
birds  were  singing  and  bits  of  garden  were  still 
in  bloom  as  if  nothing  had  happened.  A  long 
flight  of  steps  at  the  end  of  a  street,  worn  by  ages 
of  feet  going  up  and  down,  led  to  nothing  and  one 
couldn't  imagine  what  had  been  there  in  the  past. 
There  was  only  a  wall  with  wistaria  in  full  bloom 
on  it  and  an  immense  lilac  bush  growing  up  by 
the  side,  around  which  swarms  of  bees  were  buzz- 
ing. 

Mrs.  Lee  had  brought  some  bread  and  jelly 
and  sardines,  so  we  sat  among  the  ruins  and  ate 
them,  listening  to  the  birds  singing  and  hearing 
now  and  then  a  boom  of  distant  cannon. 

Then  we  went  on,  and  before  we  knew  it,  had 
come  to  a  gate  and  realized  it  must  be  Verdun 
because  the  last  kilometer  post  had  said,  "Verdun 
IK." 

We  went  through,  passed  a  sentry  and  the  high 
waUs  of  the  citadel,  all  scarred  with  shell  shots. 
We  asked  a  soldier  for  the  Bureau  de  la  Place  and 
found  we  had  gone  too  far  and  were  calmly  on 
our  way  to  Douaumont,  so  we  went  back  and  drew 


52  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

up  in  front  of  a  narrow  door,  popping  a  tire  as  we 
did  so.  However,  we  got  out  and  jacked  it 
up,  and  then  went  to  see  the  Commandant.  We 
arrived  in  a  large  room  where  the  Captain  was. 
He  told  us  to  sit  down.  We  hauled  out  our 
papers,  and  he  disappeared  to  look  us  up.  There 
were  several  telephones  in  there,  and  all  of 
them  had  this  placard  on  them:  "Attention! 
The  German  Listening  Post  can  hear  you."  We 
hadn't  been  announced  from  Paris  yet,  so  we  had 
to  wait  some  time.  While  we  Avaited  the  Captain 
showed  us  official  photographs  of  the  battles 
around  there  and  pieces  of  shell.  The  Germans 
had  just  sent  in  nine  380's  —  their  biggest  — 
two  days  before,  and  the  captain  had  pieces  of 
them,  some  of  which  he  gave  to  us. 

Then  he  showed  us  some  of  the  citadel.  As 
it  is  "sacred  ground"  so  to  speak,  I  won't  de- 
scribe it. 

After  a  while  the  Colonel  appeared  and  offered 
to  show  us  about  in  his  machine,  so  we  made 
the  tour  of  the  town.  It  was  a  repetition  of 
what  we  had  already  seen  on  a  larger  scale. 
The  fashionable  residence  section  especially  was 
razed  to  the  ground.  One  saw  portions  of  houses 
such  as  are  on  the  sunny  side  of  Commonwealth 
Avenue,  and  more  beautiful  by  far,  literally  pul- 
verized.    The  theater  looked  as  if  some  Vikinof 


A  VISIT  TO  VERDUN  53 

god  had  had  an  orgy  there.  The  Cathedral  was 
open  to  every  wind  that  blew.  The  Colonel, 
a  perfect  dear  with  white  hair,  told  us  how  he  was 
trying  to  save  some  old  paintings  on  a  ceiling 
in  the  town  that  dated  almost  from  Roman  times. 
Also  he  had  had  beautiful  doorways  propped  up 
with  beams. 

They  showed  us  the  "Place"  where  the  German 
Emperor  had  boasted  he'd  review  his  troops. 
The  saddest  place  of  all  was  a  huge  building  in 
the  top  of  which  grain  had  been  stored.  It  had 
caught  on  fire  and  three  hundred  French  soldiers 
were  roasted  alive  in  it,  because  the  windows 
in  the  rooms  downstairs  were  barred.  There 
was  nothing  there  but  one  wall  when  we  saw  it. 
In  one  place  was  a  huge  sign,  teUing  that  Singer 
Sewing  Machines  were  for  sale.  In  another  house, 
torn  open,  we  saw  pictures  and  mottoes  still 
hanging  on  the  wall.  In  another  house  a  bed 
was  left  with  the  bedclothes  thrown  over  the 
foot-board. 

We  went  into  a  garden  on  the  ramparts  and 
there  saw  aU  the  surrounding  countryside.  It 
was  green,  but  the  trees  in  some  places  stood 
up  hke  broken  dead  reeds  against  the  blue  sky. 
We  heard  the  cannon  booming  away  as  the  Colonel 
pointed  out  the  direction  of  Douaumont,  of  Vaux, 
etc.     Then  we  looked  down  on  the  town.     There 


54  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

wasn't  a  single  whole  house  in  it.  The  Colonel  said 
it  would  have  to  be  either  razed  completely  or  built 
again  in  another  place.  While  we  were  standing 
there  an  aeroplane  flew  overhead  and  the  Colonel 
looked  calmly  up  and  said,    "Un  Frangais." 

We  went  to  a  hospital  in  the  cellar  of  a  large 
building.  Everything  is  in  cellars  there  and  the 
cellar  windows  are  filled  with  sandbags,  too. 
There  we  left  the  supphes  we  had  in  the  auto- 
mobile. It  was  clean,  but  all  underground. 
There  was  no  one  in  it.  Unless  they  were  very 
badly  wounded  and  couldn't  possibly  go  any 
further,  they  were  not  sent  to  that  hospital, 
which  is  known  as  "Les  Chambres  des  Morts." 
There  were  four  American  Ambulance  boys  sitting 
waiting  in  their  ambulances  outside. 

Another  hospital  we  saw  had  rows  of  helmets 
which  had  been  pierced  by  shells.  All  the  men 
had  been  trepanned,  a  piece  of  rib  taken  out 
and  put  in  their  skulls  where  the  bone  was  broken, 
—  and  all  had  Hved. 

They  asked  us  to  dinner,  so  we  dined  with  the 
Captain  and  the  Colonel  and  the  Commandant, 
also  the  officer  who  has  command  of  the  mi- 
trailleuses of  the  forts  of  Vaux,  and  two  others. 
They  gave  us  all  kinds  of  souvenirs  and  were  very 
kind  and  tired  looking.  The  one  from  Vaux 
gave  us  some  flowers  he  had  gathered  at  the  fort 


A  VISIT  TO  VERDUN  55 

there  that  morning.  I  inclose  some  with  a  piece 
of  Hlac  from  a  ruined  garden  in  Verdun  that  the 
Colonel  gave  me.  The  captain  presented  us  each 
with  a  little  medal. 

I  forgot  to  say  that  the  Colonel  showed  us  the 
shell  holes  of  the  380's.  They  are  as  big  around 
as  our  Boston  house  is  long,  and  about  6i  feet 
deep.  One  hit  on  the  side  of  a  house  where  about 
forty  soldiers  were,  and  burst  into  the  room. 
No  one  was  even  scratched,  though  the  wall  had 
an  immense  hole  in  it  and  the  stones  were  scarred 
with  a  kind  of  petrified  splash  mark. 

We  couldn't  spend  the  night  in  Verdun  so  we 
started  after  dinner.  It  got  dark  at  once  and  of 
course  we  got  lost  and  didn't  dare  light  our  lights. 
Finally  we  landed  halfway  up  a  hill,  on  a  road 
simply  pock-marked  with  shell  holes  and  there 
we  stayed  till  morning  light.  Naturally  we  didn't 
sleep  a  wink,  but  I  never  knew  a  night  to  go  so 
fast.  It  was  warm,  though  drizzhng  a  Httle, 
and  we  sat  and  watched  the  guns  hating  each  other 
on  three  sides  of  us.  They  boomed  steadily  all 
night  long  and  the  sky  was  Ht  up  with  flashes  of 
Hght  from  them,  and  with  star  shells.  We 
heard  an  aeroplane  and  saw  it  like  a  huge,  warm 
star  over  our  heads,  dipping  and  gliding.  Then 
it  disappeared,  and  came  again,  and  we  saw 
another  rise  to  meet  it.    Then  they  both  seemed 


56  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

to  fall  and  all  of  a  sudden  one  went  out.  Through 
it  aU  we  could  hear  the  crickets  chirping.  To- 
wards dawn,  the  guns  got  more  hateful  and  there 
was  a  steady  roar  in  the  distance.  At  the  same 
time  the  birds  began  waking  up  around  us,  first 
with  sleepy  chirps,  and  then  they  sang.  Where 
they  were,  I  don't  know,  as  the  hill  we  were  on 
was  as  barren  as  could  be. 

When  it  got  quite  fight,  towards  3.30, 1  tightened 
up  the  brakes  and  we  started  off  down  the  hill 
again.  We  went  through  woods  on  a  fearful 
road  and  finally  came  to  a  kind  of  cavahy  camp. 
There  we  asked  the  way  to  Bar-le-Duc,  and  found 
that  we  had  lost  our  way  and  were  almost  in  the 
front-fine  trenches.  We  therefore  retraced  our 
steps,  and  went  on  to  Bar-le-Duc  where  we  had 
breakfast  and  went  to  bed  tifi  noon. 

In  all,  we  came  across  five  sections  of  the  Amer- 
ican Ambulance  on  our  way  out.  They  were 
all  surprised  to  see  us,  and  greeted  us  with  cheers 
and  grins  and  hat  waving.  I  saw  an  awfuUy 
nice  boy  in  one  of  them,  a  friend  of  Winthrop's. 
I  wish  you  knew  him,  he  is  about  six  feet  three 
with  brown  eyes  and  a  charming  smile. 

We  spent  that  night  in  Vitry-le-Frangois, 
where  the  Germans  had  been  for  ten  days,  taking 
everything,  and  had  left  in  payment  a  "bon  de 
requisition"  for  50  francs. 


Somewhere"  Near  Verdun 


CHAPTER  IV 
Pershing's  Troops  Arrive 

Paris,  June  13,  1917. 

M.,  your  birthday  is  being  celebrated  by  the  arrival 
of  General  Pershing  in  Paris.  To-day  when  I 
went  through  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  there  was 
a  huge  crowd  standing  outside  the  Hotel  Crillon 
where  he  is  going  to  stay.  Among  them  were 
many  Canadians,  —  and  war-worn  veterans  they 
are,  —  beautifully  tanned,  but  under  it  that 
hollow-cheeked,  drawn-eyed  trench  look  so  many 
of  them  have  from  being  constantly  tense.  One 
sees  so  many  wounded  and  tired-looking  men, 
also  fine  ones,  aU  with  the  same  stamp  on  them. 

Sometimes  the  war  makes  me  feel  actually 
sick  physically,  it  is  so  overpowering  and  crush- 
ing. I  can't  think  of  anything  to  compare  it 
to  but  a  steam-roller  in  a  dream,  coming  on  when 
you  can't  move. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  in  spite  of  the  splendid 
successes  of  the  English,  there  is  a  feeling  of  awful- 
ness  about  it  all,  that  I  didn't  feel  at  first.  Gains 
do  not  mean  so  much  to  people  now,  for  they 

57 


58  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

know  that  every  gain  means  fearful  losses.  Just 
the  same,  there  is  a  dogged  determination  to  win. 
We  feel  the  awfulness,  while  waiting  for  the 
United  States  troops.  If  only  a  few  come,  the 
moral  effect  wiU  be  tremendous,  but  of  course, 
more  than  a  few  men  are  needed,  and  above  all, 
food. 

June  14,  1917. 

To-day  I  almost  got  run  over  by  a  man  on  a 
simple  bicycle  because  I  had  turned  around  to 
look  at  the  first  U.  S.  soldier  I  have  seen.  Oh ! 
but  they  are  good  looking  and  straight !  Paris 
is  quite  thrilled  over  them  and  there  is  a  per- 
petual crowd  outside  the  Crillon  all  day  long. 
There  are  about  ten  automobiles,  beautiful  gray 
ones,  with  chauffeurs  in  steel  helmets,  waiting 
outside  the  hotel  this  morning.  I  wonder  whether 
it  means  that  Pershing  is  going  to  take  a  trip  to 
the  front. 

One  American  soldier  passed  me  just  now,  as  I 
was  passing  two  English  naval  men  (Paris  is  full 
of  them  now).  They  both  turned  around  and  said 
to  each  other,  "Aou,  smart  looking  chap!"  Our 
men  certainly  do  have  a  certain  ''swank"  about 
them,  though  they  don't  have  the  color  scheme 
of  the  French  that  is  so  attractive,  nor  yet  the 
perfect,  immaculate  fitness  of  the  British  Army. 


PERSHING'S  TROOPS  ARRIVE        59 

Paris,  August  16,  1917. 

"There's  a  pause  in  the  day's  occupation," 
I  having  locked  myself  in  my  room  so  that  neither 
the  maid,  nor  the  hotel  proprietor,  nor  any  one 
in  fact,  but  a  locksmith  can  get  me  out.  Hence, 
here  I  am  waiting  in  the  hope  that  a  locksmith 
will  be  found  to  extricate  me.  If  you  never  get 
this  letter  you'll  know  that  I've  slowly  died  of 
starvation  in  my  room,  while  the  hotel  people 
are  gone  to  get  the  necessary  papers  to  get  a  lock- 
smith demobilized  long  enough  to  let  me  out. 

To-morrow,  I  am  going  down  to  Bonnaqueil 
for  a  three  weeks'  vacation.  Thank  Heaven! 
I  need  the  rest  badly,  and  I  am  probably  going  up 
toward  the  front  when  I  come  back. 

Paris,  September  14,  1917. 

I  feel  much  better  after  my  vacation  and  am 
quite  rested  and  joyful  to  be  at  work  again.  As 
soon  as  I  get  my  papers  I  am  going  up  to  Nancy, 
and  in  the  meantime  I  am  mostly  employed  in 
combining  the  insides  of  "Eddie,  Jr."  with 
"Lizzie's"  cast  off  appendices  and  tonsils  and 
making  a  Ford  out  of  it.  Also  "Blighty"  came 
back  from  the  American  "front"  in  a  mess, 
evidently  having  been  tried  by  every  soldier 
there,  so  we've  had  to  amputate  her  radiator  and 
commutator,  and  apply  disinfectants  to  the  insides 


60  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

of  her  cylinders,  and  grind  her  valves,  and  apply 
artificial  respiration  to  her  carburetor.  She  is 
still  in  a  state  of  coma,  but  I  hope  will  be  out 
again  by  to-morrow.  She  is  called  "Blighty" 
because  she's  English,  having  a  right-hand  drive. 
On  my  way  up  here,  I  was  waiting  with  the 
Comtesse  and  Marie  for  my  train  to  Paris  when 
we  saw  some  American  troops  at  the  station. 
One  of  our  boys  about  seven  feet  tall  came  near 
us,  and  the  Comtesse  who,  you  know,  is  tiny, 
coming  only  to  my  shoulder,  said  "Vive  FAme- 
rique,"  up  at  him.  He  looked  all  around  and  up, 
and  then  down,  and  at  last  saw  her  looking  up 
at  him,  and  then  he  grinned  and  saluted.  They 
were  such  nice  and  very  American  soldiers.  Her 
eyes  filled  with  tears  and  she  said,  "Their  poor 
mothers!"  I  hadn't  thought  of  that,  I  was  so 
proud  to  see  them  here,  and  they  all  looked  so 
safe  and  healthy  and  were  joking  away  trying  to 
buy  tobacco  and  coffee  at  the  station  bufi'et. 

Paris,  September  23,  1917. 

People  here  have  ceased  to  discuss  Russia,  and 
when  the  Russian  ofl&cers,  who  are  staying  in 
this  hotel,  go  out,  they  dress  in  civilian  clothes 
in  order  not  to  be  insulted  in  the  streets.  I 
never  hear  the  end  of  the  war  discussed,  but  there 
is  an  atmosphere  of  tense  determination.     People 


PERSHING'S  TROOPS  ARRIVE        61 

look  with  hope  to  the  EngHsh  who  are  heroic  in 
their  present  efforts  and  victories,  and  we  are 
very  popular.  I  think  the  French  have  hope  and 
faith  in  the  United  States  for  great  things  in  the 
future,  but  when  they  look  at  our  straight, 
efficient,  wonderful  looking  soldiers  they  say : 
"The  Americans  are  magnificent,  but  if  they  had 
only  come  two  years  ago  !" 

I  hope  a  great  effort  will  be  made  to  give  our 
soldiers  proper  amusement  both  at  the  front  and 
in  Paris.  One  can't  help  noticing  conditions. 
Just  recently  a  new  club  has  been  opened  here 
for  the  Canadian  and  Australian  soldiers,  but 
nevertheless  one  meets  them  wandering  about 
the  streets  in  lost-looking  groups.  They  look 
strong  and  brown,  but  often  they  look  so  sad  and 
lost  with  a  patient,  worn  expression,  and  eyes 
that  seem  strained  from  looking  at  —  one  doesn't 
know  what.  They  are  here  for  only  four  to  seven 
days'  leave,  and  it  is  pathetic,  when  one  thinks 
what  they  have  come  through  and  are  going  back 
to.  I  suppose  our  soldiers  will  get  to  look  like 
that,  too.  Just  now  they  are  an  inspiring  sight 
of  efficiency  personified. 

I  heard  the  nicest  thing  about  our  soldiers  the 
other  day  from  a  French  lady.  She  lives  at  one 
of  the  ports  and  when  the  American  Engineers 
came,  opened  her  house  to  give  them  the  use  of 


62  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

her  library  and  offered  to  teach  them  French. 
The  Colonel  was  delighted,  and  thanked  her 
**mais  delicieusement "  and  all  the  soldiers  were 
as  nice  as  nice  could  be  and  took  great  care  of 
the  books,  always  covering  them  with  paper. 
Also,  they  were  so  pohte  and  modest,  and  "se- 
rieux"  and  "  convenables "  that  the  whole  place 
is  in  love  with  them,  and  her  daughter  is  quite 
enchanted  with  one  who  is  a  dentist  in  ordinary 
life.  She  says  he  has  beautiful  manners  and 
luckily  is  "tres  serieux"  and  married ! 


CHAPTER  V 
Back  of  the  Front  at  Nancy 

Grand  Hotel,  Place  Stanislas, 
Nancy,  October  7,  1917. 

Here  I  am  at  Nancy  !  It  is  a  beautiful  place,  in 
the  frigid  zone  I  am  sure  —  and  they  say  in  the 
war  zone.  We  motored  through  from  Paris  all 
in  one  day,  arriving  here  at  half  past  two  in  the 
morning,  and  it  took  us  nineteen  hours.  The 
last  part  of  our  journey  was  made  in  the  pitch 
darkness  and  rain.  One  of  the  several  times 
that  we  got  lost  was  at  Bar-le-Duc,  at  midnight, 
in  the  pouring  rain.  The  road  we  should  have 
taken  was  blocked  by  the  "degats"  of  the  last 
raid,  so  we  had  to  circle  around  and  around,  to 
find  a  road  that  we  could  take,  but  eventually 
we  saw  a  glimmer  of  fight.  Mrs.  Dawson  and  Miss 
MitcheU  caUed  "Madame!"  at  it,  and  a  head 
appeared  and  gave  vague  and  sleepy  directions. 
There  wasn't  a  fight  in  the  whole  town,  nor  in 
any  town  that  we  went  through,  and  you  have 
no  idea  how  ghastly  ruined  viUages  look  by  the 

63 


64  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

headlights  of  a  Ford  when  the  ruins  are  shiny  and 
wet. 

During  our  travels,  we  have  come  on  several 
''Somewhere  in  France's,"  that  is,  brand-new 
barracks  with  the  U.  S.  flag  flying  over  them. 
Most  of  them  are  being  built,  but  once  we  sud- 
denly saw  the  field  in  front  of  a  camp  shake,  and 
realized  that  they  were  our  soldiers  drilling! 
We  passed  one,  crossing  the  road  from  one  bar- 
rack to  another,  with  a  saucepan  in  his  hand. 
When  he  saw  "American  Fund  for  French 
Wounded  "  on  our  car,  he  grinned  and  waved  the 
saucepan,  which  was  bad  for  its  contents. 

Later  we  saw  a  most  picturesque  sight :  a  red 
camp  fire,  with  steel-helmeted,  khaki-clad  figures 
around  it,  toasting  themselves  and  their  food. 
As  we  passed  by,  they  waved  and  shouted, 
*'HeUo!"  and  one  said,  "Gee,  but  it's  fine  to  see 
white  folks ;  what  are  you  doing  in  this  corner  of 
the  world?" 

S.,  your  photograph  has  arrived  and  I  am  over- 
joyed. I  had  to  leave  my  photograph  books 
behind  in  Paris,  as  every  extra  ounce  of  baggage 
counts,  so  now  the  picture  gallery  in  my  room  in 
this  hotel  consists  of  S.,  a  tiny  photograph  of 
Mamma  when  she  ( —  horrors  !  —  a  mouse  just  ran 
across  the  floor  of  my  room !!...)  was  a  little 
girl,  one  of  Papa  and  the  picture  of  Brattleboro  by 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  65 

Miss  Keyes,  also  a  Nativity  by  Rembrandt. 
Above  the  door  is  an  awful  panel  of  a  baby-carriage 
running  away  downhill  with  the  baby  in  it.  Some- 
thing has  got  to  be  done  to  suppress  it  soon,  —  very 
soon.  Above  the  other  door  is  a  panel  of  a 
muddy  railway-yard  with  an  old  woman  running 
across  the  road,  about  to  come  to  grief  in  a  large 
puddle.  The  perspective  is  awful.  The  rest  of 
the  room  isn't  so  bad,  gray,  plain,  and  clean,  in 
fact  rather  pleasant  when  the  sun  shines. 

Did  I  tell  you  that  Appleton  Miles  is  at  the 
head  of  a  section  now,  and  awfully  well  thought 
of  in  all  the  work  he  has  done  P  In  fact,  he  is  one 
of  the  best  men. 

Of  course  there  are  a  million  things  I  should 
like  to  tell  you  and  can't.  If  I  even  begin  to  men- 
tion the  people  I  see,  it  would  give  a  lot  away. 
If  you  are  bursting  with  curiosity,  just  think  how 
I  am  exploding  with  what  I  want  to  tell  you  and 
can't !     I  think  I'd  better  stop. 

Nancy,  October  21,  1917. 

It  is  a  year  to-day  since  I  started  on  my  travels 
for  France,  and  such  celebrations  as  I've  been 
having ! 

On  Tuesday,  Mrs.  Dawson,  the  head  of  our 
depot,  went  to  see  a  very  famous  regiment  that 
is  near  here,  —  the  one  Victor  Chapman  served 


66  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

in.  She  was  most  wonderfully  received  by  the 
general,  who,  by  the  way,  has  five  palms 
(meaning  many  citations  in  Army  orders)  and 
a  star  on  his  Croix  de  Guerre  and  the  Legion 
of  Honor  too.  They  gave  her  tea,  and  when  she 
went  away,  a  perfectly  coal-black  man  stepped 
out  from  the  ranks,  and  presented  her  with  a 
poem,  so  well  done  in  penmanship  and  design 
that  it  looked  almost  as  if  it  were  beautifully 
engraved.  It  was  written  in  some  Persian-look- 
ing writing,  and  was  translated  below  into  French. 
The  poem  was  to  thank  God  that  the  Americans 
were  here,  and  to  welcome  her  as  their  representa- 
tive. The  General  apologized  for  not  producing 
something  better,  —  it  was  impromptu,  he  said, 
as  she  had  come  unexpectedly  to  see  their  hospi- 
tals. 

That  was  not  all  the  excitement  of  the  day, 
however.  At  six  o'clock,  I  was  in  my  room  when 
the  "tocsin,"  the  signal  for  air  raids,  went  off. 
At  the  same  moment  the  75 's  on  the  hills  around 
went  banging  away.  They  make  an  odd  sound, 
like  a  loose,  very  thick  elastic  being  snapped. 
Then,  bang-bang-bang,  the  machine  gun  on  the 
top  of  the  next  building  went  off,  with  a  terrific 
cackle,  and  shot  up  white  balls  with  a  poppy- 
puff  noise.  Meantime  the  searchlights  were  wav- 
ing and  we  could  hear,  above  it  all,  the  penetrat- 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  67 

ing  and  sky-filling  whirr  of  the  enemy  machines 
above  us.  The  electric  lights  dimmed  every  time 
a  bomb  dropped.  You  could  tell  the  bombs 
by  the  kind  of  dead,  deafening  thud  and  bang, 
and  the  shaking  of  the  hotel. 

Just  at  that  time  Mrs.  Dawson's  motor  had 
reached  the  railway  station  and  the  first  bomb 
went  off  on  the  station.  It's  "forbidden  to  cir- 
culate" during  an  attack,  but  just  the  same,  they 
bumped  away  from  the  station  as  fast  as  they 
could.  Guns  were  firing  on  the  Boche  and 
splinters  were  falling  all  around.  They  make  a 
spark  when  they  fall,  like  those  struck  out  by 
horses'  feet.  There  were  no  lights  in  the  town 
and  they  had  to  turn  out  the  lights  of  their  car, 
so  of  course  they  blew  their  horn  as  loud  as  they 
could,  but  such  was  the  noise  that  they  could 
not  hear  it  themselves. 

They  arrived  safely  at  the  hotel,  and  about 
half  past  seven,  the  raid  having  let  up  a  bit,  we 
started  to  have  dinner.  You  never  knew  such  a 
hectic  meal.  The  cook  was  having  hysterics  in 
the  cellar,  an  English  officer  and  a  little  French 
couple  and  ourselves  were  the  only  stable  popu- 
lation of  the  dining  room.  The  rest,  consisting 
of  some  women  and  a  bald-headed  man,  kept 
popping  up  and  down,  to  and  from  the  cellar. 
The  women  took  food  with  them  when  they  went 


68  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

down,  but  the  poor  man  was  trying  to  eat  his 
soup.  He  took  two  mouthfuls.  Then  the  guns 
went  off,  and  down  he'd  go  again.  The  Enghsh 
officer,  who,  by  the  way,  had  a  Victoria  Cross, 
said  :  "Fm  jolly  sorry  for  him,  his  soup's  getting 
so  cold.  I  can't  speak  French,  or  Pd  tell  him  to 
take  his  plate  with  him." 

Marthe,  the  little  pink-cheeked  maid,  was  a 
wonder  and  served  away  as  placidly  as  ever. 
Well,  it  kept  up  intermittently  until  about  ten, 
and  then,  after  having  collected  some  sphnters 
from  in  front  of  the  hotel,  we  decided  to  go  to 
bed.  Monsieur  Martin,  one  of  the  officials,  and 
a  friend  of  ours,  came  in  during  the  evening  to  tell 
us  that  a  good  deal  of  injury  had  been  done,  and 
some  lives  lost,  as  a  train  had  been  hit.  The 
Boches  always  try  for  the  stations  and  so  most 
of  the  bombs  had  been  dropped  there. 

The  station  is  some  distance  off,  by  the  way, 
and  this  cellar  is  about  the  best  one  in  town, 
having  several  exits  and  being  of  reenforced  con- 
crete, so  we  are  absolutely  safe.  There  is  always 
time  to  get  down  cellar,  and  a  vaulted  cellar, 
such  as  ours,  has  never  been  known  to  give  in. 
When  you  hear  that  cellars  have  been  smashed, 
you  may  be  sure  that  they  are  the  flat  kind. 

I  thought  that  I  would  write  you  about  the 
bombings,  as  they  are  in  the  American  papers, 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  69 

but  don't  get  worried  if  you  read  of  more  bom- 
bgu'dments  of  Nancy.  An  air-raid  is  mostly 
noise  and  some  buildings  smashed  in,  but  no  one 
who  has  taken  the  proper  precautions  has  been 
hit.  Only  those  who  stay  upstairs,  or  go  out  on 
the  street  have  been  hurt. 

Well,  the  next  day,  of  course,  we  went  to  see 
the  destruction,  or  rather,  we  couldn't  help  see- 
ing it,  as  it  was  all  down  the  business  section  where 
our  work  took  us.  It  is  strange,  ludicrous, 
horrid,  and  very  sad.  The  next  night  at  six, 
the  Boches,  with  theu*  usual  precision,  began  again. 
It  was  the  same,  except  that  the  Boches  dropped 
an  incendiary  bomb,  and,  with  the  white  search- 
lights waving  about  the  sky,  the  red  glare  was 
weird. 

We  were  at  the  doorway  of  the  hotel  at  one 
time,  and  saw  two  bombs  drop  in  a  distant  part 
of  the  town.  For  a  second  the  bomb  flares  up 
bright  red,  and  then  it  is  utterly  dark.  Then 
comes  the  bang.  They  struck  two  houses,  but 
there  was  no  loss  of  life  in  them.  You  should 
see  the  houses,  though !  All  three  stories  were 
in  a  mess  on  the  street,  and  the  debris  was  so 
finely  spHntered  up  that  one  couldn't  teU  what 
had  been  in  the  houses.  On  one  wall,  however, 
two  stories  up,  was  a  big  mirror,  intact,  also  a 
smaller  one  on  the  floor  above,  and  two  pictures 


70  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

and  a  little  what-not  with  roses  on  it,  entirely 
undisturbed,  in  another  corner,  all  by  itself, 
a  piano  untouched. 

Russell  Cogswell  and  some  of  his  section  offered 
their  services,  and  did  nobly.  They  evacuated 
the  hospital  in  the  middle  of  the  raid,  and  also 
collected  the  killed  and  wounded.  The  town 
is  full  of  admiration  for  them. 

A  day  or  two  after,  a  Boche  aeroplane  was 
brought  in  smashed,  and  dumped  in  the  Place, 
in  front  of  the  statue  of  Stanislas,  King  of  Poland. 
It  is  the  custom  to  do  that  here,  whenever  one 
is  brought  down  in  the  neighborhood.  When 
Guynemer  guarded  Nancy,  there  were  sometimes 
three  at  one  time. 

That  night  I  was  waked  at  four  a.m.  by  gun 
firing,  and  the  tocsin,  also  the  siren,  which  is  for 
long  distance  guns  bombarding  the  town.  I  hur- 
riedly put  on  a  few  clothes,  but  nothing  more 
happened,  so  I  went  to  sleep  again.  At  six  the 
same  performance  was  repeated.  In  the  morning 
I  went  downstairs  to  learn  that  this  time  it  had 
been  Zeppelins !  They  hadn't  dropped  anything 
and  were  going  very  slowly,  evidently  lost  in  the 
fog  on  their  way  back  from  somewhere.  Since 
then  we  have  heard  that  they  were  coming  back 
from  England.  One  has  been  brought  down  in 
flames  not  far  from  here,  so  to-day  we  went  to 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  71 

see  it.  From  all  the  country  around,  people  were 
flocking  there,  and  we  met  officers  driving  over 
in  any  kind  of  little  cart.  Three  generals,  French, 
American,  and  English  were  looking  at  it,  and  we 
saw  them  being  introduced  to  each  other  in  front 
of  it.  We  were  not  allowed  very  near.  It  is 
a  mess,  just  a  mass  of  metal  scaffolding  and  two 
huge  tanks.  We  saw  it  huddled  up  in  the  middle 
of  a  ploughed  field,  and  over  it,  the  tender,  deli- 
cately tinted  sunset,  the  crescent  moon,  and  one 
star. 

Before  going  to  see  the  Zeppelin,  we  lunched  at 
the  Prefecture. 

The  Prefet,  Monsieur  Mirman,  and  his  wife 
are  extremely  nice  and  have  five  daughters  and 
a  httle  boy  of  ten.  While  we  were  there  the 
message  came  that  a  second  Zepp  had  been  brought 
down,  and  to-night  we  hear  that  the  third  and 
also  the  fourth  are  down,  somewhere  along  the  line. 
The  one  we  saw  got  so  near  to  Germany  that  if 
the  men  had  known  where  they  were,  and  the 
wind  had  been  right,  they  could  have  jumped 
in  parachutes  and  landed  behind  the  German 
fines.  Fm  glad  that  these  Zeppelins  will  molest 
the  world  no  more  :  —  aren't  you  ? 

At  Monsieur  Mirman's  we  met  a  French  officer, 
a  Commandant  of  Chasseurs,  big,  fithe,  and  gray, 
with  fitness  written  all  over  him.    He  had  on  a 


72  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

Croix  de  Guerre  with  two  palms,  a  silver  star, 
and  also  the  Grand  Cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor. 
We  heard  later  that  before  the  war  he  was  gov- 
ernor of  one  of  the  French  colonies.  His  wife 
was  very  charming  and  cultm*ed,  and  learned 
Arabic  so  that  she  could  help  him,  and  he  wor- 
shiped her  and  never  did  anything  without  her. 
When  the  war  broke  out  he  was  recalled,  so  they 
came  back  to  France.  Just  before  the  attack 
at  the  Aisne,  he  received  word  from  her  that  she 
was  dying,  but  that  he  was  not  to  come  to  her  if 
France  needed  him  more  than  she.  He  couldn't 
leave,  so  he  had  to  send  back  word  that  France 
did  need  him,  and  he  never  saw  her  again.  He 
would  not  let  his  soldiers  be  told,  lest  their  sym- 
pathy for  him  should  lessen  the  spirit  they  needed 
for  the  attack,  and  never  once  did  he  let  his 
personal  sorrow  be  seen.  His  soldiers  adore  him 
and  will  follow  him  anywhere.  The  Prefet  told 
us  that,  before  this  attack  in  the  Battle  of  the 
Aisne,  he  jumped  on  the  parapet,  and  while  the 
Germans  were  shooting  at  him  and  miraculously 
missing  him,  he  made  a  speech  to  his  men,  ending 
"Follow  me!"  Then  he  led  them  to  the  attack 
and  won. 

The  Commandant,  in  speaking  of  the  Ameri- 
can Ambulance  men,  said  he  thought  they  must 
be  brave  men  to  endure  constantly  seeing  such 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  73 

awful  sights,  that  he  could  not  bear  it.  He 
hardly  ever  saw  the  dead  and  wounded,  as  they 
fell  behind  him. 

He  seemed  very  fond  of  the  Prefet's  little  girl 
aged  three,  and  made  her  toy  cat  and  dog  have  a 
fight  on  the  Salon  floor,  greatly  to  her  funny  little 
bubbUng   joy. 

I  inclose  the  Roll  of  Honor  with  his  citation 
on  the  back,  which  was  given  to  me  by  the  aumo- 
nier  the  other  day,  when  he  came  in  to  thank  us 
for  our  gifts.  The  aumonier  is  a  fine  httle  man 
with  a  black  beard  and  looked  so  funny  in  his 
chasseur's  cap  and  coat  over  his  priest's  skirts. 
When  he  gave  it  to  me  he  said :  "Mademoiselle, 
you  do  not  know  the  names,  but  they  are  among 
the  bravest  and  most  glorious  of  France." 

Now  I  must  go  out.  We  are  going  to  Pont-^- 
Mousson  this  afternoon  with  Monsiem*  Martin. 
He  is  the  most  delightfully  genial  and  informal 
person,  with  a  tremendous  amount  of  nerve, 
totally  unconscious  of  himself,  and  with  a  keen 
sense  of  humor.  He  always  has  a  twinkle  in  his 
eye  and  a  little  joke,  no  matter  what  happens. 

When  the  bombing  goes  on,  he  has  to  receive 
the  telephone  messages  that  tell  where  the  bomb 
has  hit,  etc.,  also  he  has  to  go  out  to  see  what 
harm  has  been  done,  and  help  the  people  hurt. 
One  day  Mrs.  Dawson  was  in  his  office  on  busi- 


74  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

ness  when  a  raid  began.  She  said  that  Monsieur 
Martin  was  as  calm  as  ever,  and  had  his  Httle 
joke  with  the  telephone  girl  in  the  cellar,  calling 
down:  "Poor  child,  are  the  mice  very  terrify- 
ing down  there?"  and  all  the  while  the  Germans 
were  bombing  away  from  above  for  all  they  were 
worth ! 

He  now  adds  to  his  duties  by  helping  every 
American  soldier  find  his  way,  though  he  works 
in  his  office  till  midnight  nearly  every  evening. 
He  always  takes  us  about  to  see  things,  and  in 
fact  has  adopted  us.  Every  night  he  comes  in 
with  the  communique  and  after  a  bombing  he 
comes  to  reassure  us,  and  tell  us  what  has  been 
done.  In  fact,  I  think  he  considers  that  we  are 
quite  helpless  without  him.  Last  night  we  played 
"It"  with  him,  and  "I  have  a  Cat"  and  he  loved 
both  the  games. 

Nancy,  November  4,  1917. 

We  have  been  to  three  postes  to  take  supplies, 
and  you  can  have  no  idea  how  marvelous  it  is. 
The  best  troops  of  France  are  here.  Chasseurs 
and  Zouaves,  all  the  very  finest  of  men  and  officers. 
I'll  have  to  tell  you  about  them  one  by  one. 

First  we  went  to  see  the  Chasseur  Commandant 
I  told  you  about,  whom  we  met  last  week  at  the 
Prefet's.     We  sloshed  through  mud  and  water 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  75 

with  our  supplies,  taking  detours  on  the  hills, 
as  the  valley  was  flooded,  till  we  got  to  the  httle 
town  where  his  battalion  is  billeted.  It  was 
mostly  mud  and  manure  heaps,  but  out  from  a 
very  rickety,  though  charming,  old  house  came 
the  Commandant  gay  as  ever,  and  neat  as  a  pin, 
with  his  officers  the  same.  The  men  were  all 
neat  too,  and  swarming  about  the  town.  One 
wonders  how  they  could  keep  so  clean.  In  a 
field  near  by  some  of  them  were  playing  soccer, 
and  you  should  have  seen  the  fountains  of  water 
that  spurted  up  when  they  ran. 

After  we  had  given  the  doctor  our  supplies  the 
Commandant  asked  us  to  tea,  and  we  went  into 
the  house.  In  peace  times  it  must  have  been 
quite  lovely  but  now  it  is  bare,  except  for  a  croco- 
dile skin  hanging  on  one  door,  and  a  bunch  of 
mistletoe  from  Christmas  1913  over  the  huge  taible. 
The  owner  of  the  house  is  still  Kving  there,  a  little 
fat,  black-bearded  man,  dressed  in  corduroy  with 
a  huge  black  bow-tie  at  his  neck.  He  was  a 
graduate  of  the  Beaux  Arts,  had  traveled  much, 
and  two  years  before  the  war  had  bought  his  old 
house,  and  was  about  to  settle  down  there  for  the 
rest  of  his  days.  He's  there,  but  one  could  hardly 
say  settled,  with  officers  billeted  in  every  available 
corner. 

Some  of  the  young  officers  came  in  and  we  had 


76  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

a  merry  time.  One  of  the  sous-lieutenants,  fat 
and  forty,  kept  us  all  in  gales  of  laughter.  He  had 
lived  in  Paris  and  one  could  see  was  a  man  of 
the  world.  His  superior  officer  told  us  that  he 
was  hard  to  keep  in  his  place,  "though,  of  course, 
with  only  two  stripes,  he  should  stay  in  the  back- 
ground." This  was  said  with  a  twinkle  at  the 
sous-heutenant,  who  immediately  replied,  "Que 
voulez-vous  —  I  am  indispensable  —  the  maid  of 
all  work,  you  know."  At  this  they  all  roared, 
he  having  previously  conjured  up  from  somewhere 
the  mixture  of  tin  cups,  plates,  china  cups,  glasses, 
and  cracked  coffee  pot,  which  is  the  invariable 
tea  service  at  the  front.  But  you  should  have 
seen  the  cake !  The  cook  had  been  a  Paris  chef 
and  it  was  a  creation  of  cream  frosting  ingen- 
iously and  wonderfully  arranged  to  cover  all  the 
cracks  in  the  platter !  The  officers  and  doctors 
joked  about  everything  except  Italy,  where  they 
were  all  keen  to  go.  They  told  us  that  on  All 
Saints'  Day  they  had  asked  the  Italians  near  here 
to  dine  with  them,  but  the  Italians  had  sent  word 
that  they  were  feeling  too  deeply  for  their  fellow 
soldiers  in  Italy,  and  too  sad,  and  could  not  be 
gay,  so  they  would  not  come.  The  Chasseurs 
said  they  understood  and  were  very  sorry  for  the 
poor  fellows. 

The  Captain  in  this  camp,  young,  slender,  and 


BACK  OF  THE  FROiNT  AT   NANCY     77 

blushing,  graduated  from  St.  Cyr  in  1914,  and  was 
one  of  the  few  who  came  through  the  famous 
charge  they  made  in  their  white  gloves  and 
plumes. 

After  we  had  bidden  them  good-bye,  we  went 
on  to  the  next  poste,  this  time  in  a  tiny  farmhouse 
on  the  bank  of  the  river  where  we  were  met  by 
Conmiandant  V.  You  never  saw  such  mud. 
The  whole  town  had  been  flooded  the  day  before. 
On  the  way  we  were  stopped  by  some  Chasseurs ; 
we  wondered  why.  They  crowded  around,  said 
to  us:  —  "The  Americans  are  very  nice,"  and 
then,  suddenly  overcome  by  their  own  boldness, 
evaporated. 

Mademoiselle  Mirman  was  also  there  and  had 
brought  with  her  an  old  friend  of  the  Prefet 
and  of  the  Commandant  V.,  a  simple  poilu,  and 
the  two  soldiers  were  the  light  and  Hfe  of  the 
party.  It  was  the  last  day  that  the  poilu  could 
come  to  see  his  friend  the  Commandant,  because 
he  said,  "1  am  being  demobilized,  I  am  too  old. 
It  is  very  hard,  but  I  must  go  back  to  civihan 
Ufe  now." 

I  must  tell  you  about  Commandant  V.  who  has 
a  very  strong  and  rugged  face.  Before  the 
Battle  of  Verdun,  his  colonel  told  him  to  hold 
a  certain  place  and  said  good-bye  to  him,  never 
expecting  to  see  him  again.    V.  held  the  place 


78  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

until  every  man  was  killed,  and  he  himself  wounded 
in  three  places.  Then  he  fainted.  When  he 
came  to,  a  German  was  standing  over  him  say- 
ing that  he  was  dead,  so  he  lay  still  and  listened 
to  all  around  him.  When  night  came,  he  crawled 
away  until  he  heard  French  spoken  in  a  shell- 
hole.  He  got  to  the  hole,  and  told  the  men  who 
he  was.  They  refused  to  beheve  him,  and  told 
him  that  he  had  been  killed  that  morning !  Then 
he  asked  to  be  taken  to  the  colonel  who  recognized 
him.  He  told  the  colonel  that  he  must  attack  at 
once,  and  win  back  the  place  where  he  had  been, 
as  the  Germans  were  disorganized  there,  but  the 
colonel  said  he  could  not.  V.  said,  "If  I  lead  the 
attack,  will  you  order  it  ?  "  So  he  led  the  attack, 
wounded  as  he  was,  and  won  back  the  ground 
they  had  lost  in  the  morning. 

When  we  went  away  the  two  men  gave  each 
other  the  accolade  (the  kiss  on  both  cheeks) 
before  they  said  good-bye,  —  one  a  poilu  and  the 
other  a  major. 

At  the  third  poste  to  which  we  went  another 
day,  the  village  where  the  troops  were  billeted  was 
chiefly  mud,  manure,  and  pigs.  A  few  scraggly 
chickens,  children,  and  old  people  hang  around 
the  doorways  of  what  houses  are  still  whole. 
You  can't  imagine  a  more  desolate  or  dreary 
place,  and  so  near  the  front  there  is  nothing  what- 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  79 

ever  to  do,  not  even  the  warmth  of  a  fire  to  sit 
by,  and  raw  cold  outside  and  in. 

It  is  typical,  and  the  kind  of  place  our  soldiers 
are  going  to  be  billeted  in  all  winter,  and  are  in 
now.  The  men  sleep  in  cow  barns,  lofts,  in  fact 
anywhere  at  all  that  is  comparatively  dry  and 
offers  space  enough  for  them  to  lie  on  the  straw- 
covered  floor.  The  place  is  often  pitch  dark, 
and  heated  usually  by  a  smelly  lantern,  which 
gives  both  heat  and  light,  and  it  is  aired  only  by 
strong  drafts.  If  our  men  don't  write  home  as 
often  as  their  famihes  think  they  should,  I  can 
understand  why,  as  there  is  no  place  for  writing. 

The  officers'  quarters  are  sometimes  much 
better,  like  those  I  described  at  the  other  postes, 
but  in  this  place  though  they  had  rooms  in  a 
house,  they  were  dark  and  damp,  and  their  neat, 
little,  rickety  cots  were  jammed  in  as  close  to- 
gether as  the  room  would  allow.  There  was  no 
place  to  sit  and  read  or  write,  unless  the  room  in 
another  building,  where  we  lunched  with  them, 
could  be  used  for  that.  At  best,  though,  it  was 
desolate. 

In  taking  supphes,  we  get  to  know  doctors  and 
officers  in  a  very  pleasant,  friendly  way.  They 
are  always  charming,  and  always  glad  to  see  us, 
—  really  glad.  I  think  the  combination  of  our 
being  Americans,   bringing  supplies  as  soon  as 


80  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

they  are  asked  for,  and  bringing  them  ourselves, 
thus  breaking  the  monotony  of  their  Hves  a  httle, 
means  a  great  deal  to  them.  It  certainly  does 
to  us. 

Nancy,  November  10,  1917. 

The  roads  now  are  infested  by  camions  taking 
our  troops  to  the  front  in  hundreds.  The  men 
stay  from  five  to  ten  days  and  then  are  replaced 
by  others.  The  other  day  I  rescued  five  United 
States  cooks,  who  were  lost  from  their  regiment 
on  its  way  to  the  front,  and  restored  them  to 
their  convoy.  The  next  day,  coming  over  the 
same  road,  I  saw  a  car  stopped  and  surrounded 
by  soldiers,  —  "more  cooks,"  I  thought.  So  in 
my  rattling  and  muddy  Ford,  with  the  wash 
bouncing  around  hke  a  huge  white  balloon  behind, 
I  slowed  up,  at  the  same  time  calling  out,  "Are 
you  broken  down  ;  can  I  help  ?  " 

Imagine  my  horror  when  a  general  came  for- 
ward and  saluted  me.  He  said,  "No,  we  aren't 
broken  down,  but  we  are  in  trouble.  The  trouble 
with  us  is,  we  haven't  had  the  pleasure  of  speaking 
to  an  American  lady  for  a  long  time,  so  I  am 
defighted  that  you  have  stopped  and  given  me 
that  pleasure  and  opportunity."  Wasn't  that 
nice  of  him  ?  Of  course  I  had  to  stop  and  talk 
for  a  few  minutes  then.    He  was  a  Brigadier-Gen- 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  81 

eral  and  had  been  in  the  army  thirty-seven  years. 
He  came  from  Texas  originally,  but  his  last  resi- 
dence was  near  Boston  and  I  think  his  family 
live  there  now. 

After  a  while,  I  said  good-bye,  but  that  wasn't 
all.  No  sooner  had  I  got  to  Nancy  than  the 
General's  car  drove  up  to  our  depot  with  an  invi- 
tation for  me  and  Mrs.  Dawson  to  lunch  with 
him.  Well,  we  went,  and  he  was  as  nice  as 
could  be,  with  the  most  courteous  manners. 
He  talked  about  everything  under  the  sun,  and 
when  he  spoke  about  home,  he  asked  me  if  I 
didn't  get  homesick  sometimes.  He  is  straight 
and  thin,  and  soldierly,  with  very  blue  eyes. 

I  suppose  you  read  in  the  communique  that 
twelve  of  our  men  were  taken  prisoners  and  three 
were  killed  and  two  wounded.  Some  one  told 
us  that  the  Germans  came  two  hundred  strong 
in  the  night  and  got  them.  They  make  a  kind 
of  scoop  of  themselves  behind  a  barrage  and  swing 
out  from  their  trenches.  The  German  prisoner, 
captured  by  the  Americans,  was  nearly  stripped 
of  his  clothes  for  souvenirs,  and  when  they  were 
amputating  his  arm,  he  bravely  asked  if  they 
wanted  that,  too ! 

I  must  close  now  and  go  to  bed,  as  it  is  getting 
both  late  and  cold.  The  guns  are  very  loud 
to-night,  and  have  been  going  all  day. 


82    BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

Nancy,  Nov.  16th,  1917. 

Work  has  been  somewhat  slack  while  things  are 
getting  settled  in  Paris. 

We  get  differing  accounts  from  passing  Ameri- 
cans who  come  to  our  depot  because  we  are  the 
only  American  women  they  have  seen  since  land- 
ing. They  have  lived  in  mud  for  months  and  are 
very  homesick.  But  most  of  them  agree  that 
the  U.  S.  Army  won't  be  an  important  factor 
before  June  at  the  earliest,  because  they  can't 
be  trained  before  then.  There  is  a  lot  of  pneu- 
monia among  those  that  are  here,  on  account 
of  poor  equipment.  This  we  hear  from  one  side, 
from  another  we  hear  that  they  have  all  they 
want  and  are  very  well  off. 

The  Red  Cross  also  seems  to  have  been  in  a 
state  of  upheaval,  but  that  is  straightening  out. 
I  suppose  that  one  should  look  at  these  things 
from  a  proper  perspective,  that  really  they  are 
going  aU  right,  and  are  being  organized  wonder- 
fully from  some  head  who  has  an  ultimate  plan. 

The  soldiers  are  pouring  in  now,  and  I  suppose 
you,  at  home,  see  the  progress  they  have  made 
more  than  we  can  here. 

Some  of  the  people  we  have  seen  are  afraid  that 
we  won't  come  up  to  the  scratch  in  time,  and  that 
the  French  are  banking  too  much  on  us.  Per- 
haps that  is  greenness,  though,  and  shows  a  sense 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  83 

of  responsibility  that  is  good  for  them,  being 
judiciously  instilled  by  their  superiors.  Anyway, 
I  can't  help  thinking  they'll  come  out  all  right 
in  the  end,  since,  for  one  thing,  the  French  think 
they  are  fine  soldiers,  and  that  is  a  tremendous 
comphment. 

Did  I  tell  you  about  the  American  soldier, 
Clarence  Morton,  in  the  hospital  here  ?  He  has 
a  mastoid  ear,  so  they  left  him  here.  He  says 
he  almost  got  to  the  front  but  his  ear  "got  hurting 
so  I  had  to  stop,  because  I  couldn't  hide  I  had  an 
earache  when  the  abscess  burst. ' '  His  one  idea  now 
is  to  get  back  to  his  battery.     He's  the  right  stuff. 

He  keeps  his  belongings  in  a  towel ;  they  con- 
sist of  a  bullet  from  his  gun  and  newspaper  cKp- 
pings  about  the  U.  S.  Army,  especially  about 
the  Artillery.  He  seats  us  in  a  row  when  we  go 
to  see  him,  and  talks  away  with  the  greatest  joy. 
He  remarks  every  time  that  he's  "a  great  reader, 
yes  Ma'am"  ;  and  he  certainly  is.  He  reads  the 
papers  that  the  American  dentist  here  brings 
him,  from  beginning  to  end,  and  it  is  quite  a  job 
to  keep  him  supphed  with  books.  When  we 
come  into  the  ward,  he  is  flat  on  his  back  or 
draped  around  a  chair,  perfectly  obhvious  of  the 
outside  world.  Then  one  of  the  near-by  poilus 
punches  him,  which  sometimes  has  to  be  done 
twice,  before  he  is  aware  of  our  arrival. 


84  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

The  Sister  says  that  he  is  always  smihng,  and 
when  we  told  him  that  the  Sister  said  he  seemed 
happy,  he  said :  "Yes  Ma'am,  I  like  to  be  seeming 
happy." 

Grand  Hotel,  Place  Stanislas, 
Nancy,  November  25,  1917. 

Last  Sunday,  we  all  took  a  drive,  and  landed  at 
an  aviation  camp  near  here.  It  is  half  British, 
haK  French.  They  took  us  about  and  showed 
us  the  machines,  which  were  most  interesting. 
Those  for  night  work  were  painted  black  and  dark 
brown,  those  for  day  flying,  every  color  under 
the  shining  heavens  that  the  aviator  wanted.  On 
the  exhaust  pipes  of  each  French  plane  were  little 
iron  crosses  painted,  to  show  how  many  Boches 
he'd  brought  down.  They  were  perfectly  beau- 
tiful to  look  at  and  every  one  was  distinctly 
individual,  no  two  were  exactly  alike,  even  of  the 
same  kind.  They  had  little  mascots  in  them, 
rag  dolls,  or  anything  else  that  the  aviator  fancied. 
They  nearly  always  take  a  little  week-end  suit- 
case along,  in  case  they  have  to  make  a  forced 
landing  somewhere. 

Week  before  last,  four  of  them  had  to  land  in 
Germany.  They  burnt  their  machines,  and  they 
are  loose  about  the  country  there  now,  with 
125  marks  on  their  heads  as  reward  for  whoever 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  85 

captures  them.  They  rather  think  they'll  get 
back  all  right  though,  as  they  aren't  far  from  the 
hnes  and  are  in  a  quiet  sector.  They  let  me  climb 
into  one  machine  and  showed  me  how  it  worked. 
Now  I'd  give  anything  to  fly ;  you  have  no  idea 
the  thrilling  sensation  you  have,  all  nicely  and 
compactly  tucked  in  with  a  wireless  and  every- 
thing convenient  to  steer  you  through  the  clouds 
and  air.  Also,  of  course,  they  showed  us  their 
bombs  and  bomb-dropping  arrangements.  They 
have  some  perfectly  huge  machines  that  came 
across  from  England.  Afterwards  we  had  tea 
with  them,  and  they  talked  about  a  lot  of  things, 
once  about  an  air-man,  mechanic  and  observer, 
who  flew  from  England  to  Constantinople  and 
dropped  bombs  on  the  Goeben  when  it  was  there. 
Then  he  flew  back  to  England. 

The  Enghsh  aviators  seem  to  be  a  very  fine  type 
of  man,  and  nearly  all  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
men,  in  fact  England's  choicest.  More  of  the 
French  belong  to  the  adventurer  class,  which  of 
course  means  every  kind.  Some  of  the  Enghsh 
aviators  are  perfect  dears,  and  such  infants  that 
you  expect  their  voices  to  crack  if  they  become 
excited  talking.  I  imagine  they  are  just  out  of 
school;  in  fact  one  or  two  have  almost  downy 
faces ! 

The  French  Commandant   had  an  abri  built 


86  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

for  his  men  to  get  into  when  the  Boche  came  to 
pay  his  respects.  He  is  also  very  fond  of  vege- 
tables, so  he  told  the  men  to  make  a  vegetable 
garden  on  top.  Then  as  none  of  the  aviators, 
of  course,  ever  dreamed  of  taking  to  the  abri, 
they  stored  the  vegetables  (legumes)  in  it.  A  sign 
is  now  over  the  door  "Abri  des  Gros  Legumes." 
' '  Gros  Legumes ' '  is  slang  for  officers.  The  soldiers 
put  it  up  and  the  Commandant  shows  it  to  every 
one  with  laughter  and  pride. 

Speaking  about  aviators,  I  must  tell  you  about 
an  American,  who  has  been  here  lately.  When 
the  war  broke  out  he  was  at  college,  but  he  couldn't 
stand  it,  so  with  some  other  men  he  eloped  across 
the  border,  and  joined  the  Canadian  army  in  1915. 
His  family  disapproved,  but  he  went  to  France 
as  a  Tommy  just  the  same,  and  was  in  all  the 
fighting  from  then  on.  After  about  two  years 
he  was  wounded  and  discharged,  but,  as  soon  as 
he  was  well  enough,  he  tried  to  enlist  in  our  army 
and  was  refused  on  account  of  physical  disability. 
Then  he  got  work  for  the  Red  Cross  and  came  to 
France  again,  and  helped  with  the  poor  children. 
Their  pitiable  condition  appealed  to  his  sympathy 
and  I  used  to  find  him  smuggling  caps  and 
mufflers  on  to  them  to  keep  them  warm !  Never- 
theless, as  he  saw  our  troops  going  to  the  front, 
day  by  day,  it  got  on  his  nerves,  and  he  went  to 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  87 

the  French  recruiting  officer,  and  succeeded  in 
getting  accepted  in  the  French  aviation  corps.  He 
tells  me  that  he  entered  the  Canadian  army  for  ad- 
venture, but  is  going  now  as  a  duty.  He  says  he 
knows  he  can't  last  long,  and  I  think  he  can't, 
for  he  looks  very  frail,  but  what  can  you  say  about 
such  spirit  ?  He  has  written  some  poetry  which 
has  been  published.  If  I  see  him  again  I  will 
try  to  get  hold  of  it,  but  I  don't  know  where  he  is 
now.  He  used  to  bring  tobacco  and  books  to 
Clarence  Morton,  the  American  soldier  in  the 
hospital  here  whom  I  wrote  you  about,  though 
he  had  nothing  but  his  Red  Cross  salary,  which  is 
now  stopped.  When  he  went  away  he  left  all 
his  books  with  us  for  any  American  soldiers  who 
happened  to  be  sick  here.  The  books  were  mostly 
poetry,  including  Kipling's,  also  a  few  maga- 
zines, the  "First  Hundred  Thousand"  and  "Forti- 
tude." 

Nancy,  November  25,  1917. 

Last  Friday,  Mrs.  Dawson  and  Miss  Mitchell 
went  to  lunch  at  one  of  the  American  hospitals 
in  this  region,  but  I  couldn't  go  with  them,  as  I 
was  driving  Dr.  AHce  Brown's  dispensary  car 
with  Conunandant  V. 

At  the  luncheon  was  a  French  corporal,  who 
had  just  escaped  from  Germany,  having  been  a 


88  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

prisoner  there  for  twenty-two  months.  He  had 
been  moved  from  prison  camp  to  prison  camp,  — 
"pas  trop  mal,"  but  eventually  they  wanted  him 
to  work  in  a  munition  factory,  which  he  refused. 
For  punishment,  they  made  him  stand  at  atten- 
tion for  thirteen  hours,  with  his  face  to  the  wall 
and  a  German  with  a  bayonet  behind  him  to 
prick  him  if  he  relaxed.  At  the  end  of  that  time 
he  was  taken  out  to  a  farm,  with  another  prisoner, 
where  an  awful  old  man  and  woman  put  them 
in  the  dirtiest  place  they  could  for  the  night. 
In  the  morning  they  were  told  to  hoe  beets. 
They  said  they  didn't  know  how,  but  were  told, 
just  the  same,  that  they  must,  so  they  spoiled 
all  the  beets.  In  the  afternoon,  the  same  per- 
formance with  potatoes.  Then  they  were  put 
in  a  reprisal  camp,  and  fed  on  bread  and  water 
only.  Finally  they  decided  that  they  might  as 
well  die  in  trying  to  escape  as  die  there.  The 
barbed  wire  inclosing  the  camp  was  made  some- 
what hke  a  picket  fence,  and  how  they  got  through 
it  they  hardly  know,  but  one  night  they  climbed 
it  and  in  their  prison  clothes  started  to  walk  to 
Holland.  They  had  twenty-four  squares  of  choco- 
late and  fifty  biscuits  that  they  had  obtained 
somehow,  and  in  order  to  make  the  biscuits  last 
they  dared  only  suck  them.  They  traveled  only 
at  night,  swimming  the  rivers.     On  the  way  they 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  89 

met  only  three  persons,  an  old  woman  cutting 
grass,  which  she  was  stealing  in  the  middle  of 
the  night  for  her  cow,  and  two  Russian  prisoners, 
also  escaping.  They  compared  improvised  maps 
with  the  Russians,  consulted  their  compass  which 
they  had  mounted  on  a  pin  (the  box  part  having 
been  spoiled,  when  they  were  swimming  a  river), 
and  shook  hands  with  them  and  wished  them 
good  luck.  Eventually  they  grew  so  weak  that 
they  decided  they  would  have  to  give  themselves 
up,  so  one  day  at  dawn  they  spoke  to  a  peasant. 
They  asked  him  where  they  were,  and  imagine 
their  joy  when  they  found  they  were  in  Holland ! 
The  peasant  took  them  to  his  house,  and  his 
wife  cooked  a  meal  for  them,  which  made  them 
weep,  but  when  it  was  before  them,  they  could 
not  eat  a  mouthful.  However,  the  peasant  woman 
nursed  them  and  gave  them  clothes,  and  they 
were  able  to  reach  France.  Now  they  are  told 
that  they  need  not  fight  any  more,  but  they  have 
rejoined  their  old  regiment,  under  different  names, 
and  are  back  fighting  the  Boches. 

For  the  last  four  days  I  have  been  driving 
Dr.  Alice  Brown,  of  Winetka,  111.,  on  her  rounds 
of  dispensary  work.  She  visits  six  towns,  each 
twice  a  week,  to  look  after  the  women  and  chil- 
dren, who  have  had  no  medical  care  since  the  w£ir. 


90  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

Dr.  Brown  doesn't  speak  a  word  of  French,  but 
she  is  so  gentle  and  sweet  with  the  people  that 
they  have  absolute  trust  in  her,  and  no  matter 
how  much  she  hurts  them,  in  treating  infected 
fingers,  pricking  boils  etc.,  they  always  thank 
her,  sometimes  with  tears  in  their  eyes. 

As  helpers  she  has  a  trained  nurse  and  Madame 
Delabeck,  a  Belgian,  who  has  a  coiffeur  estabhsh- 
ment  in  Winetka.  Madame  Delabeck  is  a  wonder, 
and  knows  just  how  to  explain  to  the  people 
what  they  must  do  to  cure  themselves,  and  knows 
too  just  when  to  laugh,  and  when  to  sympathize 
with  their  ailments. 

In  the  dispensary  we  have  happenings  from  the 
tragic  to  the  ridiculous  every  day ;  for  instance, 
at  the  end  of  the  day,  the  nurse  is  cleaning  a 
child's  head  with  strong  antiseptic,  Madame  Dela- 
beck is  tactfully  telling  a  mother  that  she  must 
wash  her  baby,  while  I  flash  the  pocket  flash  light 
(no  other  light  being  allowed  on  account  of  the 
nearness  of  the  Boche)  down  a  small  boy's  throat 
for  Dr.  Brown,  at  the  same  time  coaxing  him  to 
put  out  his  tongue  —  "tire  la  langue,  mon  petit." 
His  proud  mamma  stands  by,  blandly  smiling  at 
her  prodigy's  tongue  prowess.  All  of  a  sudden 
Dr.  Brown  sees  four  small  boys  in  the  background, 
who,  not  wishing  to  be  outdone,  stick  out  their 
tongues,  while  one  of  them  is  about  to  cast  her 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  91 

only  thermometer  on  the  floor !  Consternation, 
but  helplessness  on  her  part  because  she  can't 
speak  French.  Finally,  however,  the  thermometer 
is  rescued,  the  right  tongue  is  waving  in  the 
air,  the  others  restored  to  their  proper  places 
and  the  consultation  continues. 

I  wish  I  could  keep  on  with  this  work  as  it  is 
the  kind  I  hke  best. 

The  sickness  among  the  people  here  is  due 
mostly  to  two  things :  —  nerves  from  being  con- 
stantly bombed  and  living  in  cellars,  and  bad 
nourishment.  Nearly  every  child  that  comes 
in  is  suffering  from  the  food,  and  many  of  the 
grown  people  too. 

The  war  bread  here  is  very  bad,  and  has  made 
a  good  many  people  ill,  including  myself,  and  we 
oiu-selves  have  had  practically  to  give  up  eating  it. 

The  children  have  a  fearful  amount  of  impetigo 
and  scabies,  they  nearly  all  have  worms,  due. 
Dr.  Brown  thinks,  to  the  bad  lard ;  pink-eye  and 
bad  colds  are  ever  present,  and  in  one  place 
they  have  mumps.  The  grown  people  suffer 
more  from  nerves,  which  affect  the  digestion,  and 
give  them  headaches  and  bad  eyes. 

The  husbands  of  many  of  these  women  have 
been  killed  or  wounded ;  the  women  have  to  go 
out  to  work,  and  leave  their  once  tidy  homes 
neglected  and  dirty. 


92  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

All  of  these  towns,  except  one,  contain  fac- 
tories where  the  women  are  employed  and  which 
are  constantly  bombed. 

Imagine  the  strain  of  working  from  6  a.m  to  6 
P.M.,  —  knowing  that  the  blast  furnaces  light 
up  the  sky  for  miles  around,  hearing  the  alarm 
for  an  air  raid  go  off,  keeping  on  working,  though 
you  know  that  the  enemy  is  coming  for  you,  — 
then  on  top  of  that  having  your  husband  at  war, 
and  your  children,  sometimes  little  ones,  running 
the  streets  all  day  with  no  lunch  except  a  piece 
of  war  bread  and  a  bit  of  chocolate  because  there 
isn't  time  to  go  home  and  cook  for  them.  That 
is  how  they  have  lived  for  the  last  three  years. 
Do  you  wonder  that  they  sometimes  come  to  us 
and  say :  "I  don't  know  what  the  matter  is,  but 
I  seem  to  feel  tired  all  the  time."  Yet  these 
women  are  the  very  ones  who  want  to  fight  the 
war  until  there  is  a  deciding  victory  for  France, 
and  I  have  never  heard  them  complaining  of  their 
hardships.  Sometimes  they  sigh  and  comment 
on  the  length  of  the  war,  —  all  are  weary  of  it 
—  but  usually  they  say:  "We  shall  hold  out  to 
the  very  end."  They  have  absolute  faith  and 
trust  in  us  and  in  the  English,  of  whom  they  say  : 
"lis  ne  Mcheront  jamais"  ("they  will  never  let 
go  ").  They  wait  for  hours  to  see  "la  doctoresse 
Americaine  "  and  so  many  flock  to  her  that  we  have 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  93 

to  turn  some  away.  The  very  fact  that  we  are 
helping  the  civihans  makes  them  think  that  we 
must  have  immense  resources  ready  at  hand. 
We  are  the  only  Americans  they  have  seen,  and 
they  are  so  grateful  and  eager  that  it  is  pathetic 
to  see  them  and  almost  frightening  to  reahze  the 
faith  they  have  in  us  to  end  the  war,  and  start 
them  on  a  normal  existence  again.  I  pray  we 
may  not  fail  them  when  they  need  us  most ! 

Nancy,  December  15,  1917. 

On  Thanksgiving  we  were  all  invited  to  dine 
at  the  hospital  at  Toul  at  6.30,  so  at  6  we  started 
off  in  the  motor,  taking  Monsiem*  Martin  with  us. 
He  was  delighted,  of  course,  because  he  had 
never  heard  of  such  a  thing  as  Thanksgiving  before. 

As  no  turkey  can  be  procured,  we  had  to  take  with 
us  a  huge  and  piping  hot  goose  in  a  covered  dish. 
Miss  Mitchell  and  Miss  de  Schweinitz  sat  in 
front,  Monsieur  Martin  and  I  in  the  back  and 
Monsieur  Martin  held  the  goose,  and  he  thought 
it  so  nice  and  informally  American.  Well,  we 
went  along,  balancing  the  goose  and  chatting, 
and  were  nearly  there,  when  —  pop !  went  a  tire  ! 
We  had  none  pumped  up  to  change  with,  so  we  had 
to  put  in  a  new  inner  tube,  which  is  a  fearful  job 
on  the  big  Overland  tires.  In  fact  we  worked 
away  about  haK  an  hour,  and  didn't  accomplish 


94  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE, 


much,  Monsieur  Martin  hopping  about  on  the 
outskirts,  jacking  up  the  car,  and  holding  the 
lanterns  and  saying  how  "malheureux"  it  was 
that  he  didn't  know  anything  about  a  car.  We 
all  got  quite  weak  from  laughing.  Meanwhile, 
of  course,  the  goose  was  getting  chilled  all  alone 
in  its  glory  on  the  back  seat.  After  a  while  we 
heard  a  motor  coming  with  two  men  in  it,  so  we 
stopped  it,  and  asked  if  they  would  help  us. 
They  said  they  would  be  delighted  to  if  we  could 
lend  them  some  gasolene,  for  they  had  a  leak  in 
their  gasolene  tank  and  otherwise  couldn't  get 
to  Nancy  if  they  stopped !  Luckily  we  had  some. 
They  tried  and  tried  for  about  another  hour, 
while  the  goose  congealed,  and  they  couldn't 
do  it.  Then  along  came  a  camion.  They  tried 
for  half  an  hour  more  and  at  last  got  the  tire  on. 

All  this  time  no  one  got  in  the  least  impatient 
or  angry  as  Americans  probably  would  have 
done.  They  said  the  tire  was  marvelous,  it 
must  have  some  "trick"  to  it,  so  that  really  it 
worked  very  easily,  —  if  only  you  knew  how. 
It  must  be  practical,  because  it  was  American, 
and  everything  American  was  practical.  At 
last  they  got  it  changed,  and  we  went  on  our  way 
with  a  stone-cold  goose,  two  hours  late ! 

When  we  got  to  the  hospital,  dinner  was  half 
finished.    They  had  waited  an  hour  for  us.    The 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  95 

Staff  of  the  Toul  Hospital  was  there,  some  Eng- 
Hsh  and  Irish  aviators  who  had  been  asked  over, 
and  five  American  aviators  who  had  heard  there 
was  a  place  where  you  could  get  a  Thanksgiving 
dinner  for  twenty-five  cents,  so  they  had  turned 
up!  They  had  to  go  immediately  after  dinner 
but  the  English  and  Irish  stayed  on.  There  was 
one  fascinator  among  them,  —  an  Irish  Captain 
with  red  face  and  hair,  and  white  eyebrows,  but 
most  beautifully  made  and  graceful. 

After  dinner  we  played  "Going  to  Jerusalem" 
and  "Winkum"  and  danced  a  Virginia  reel. 
You  should  have  seen  the  Irishman !  We  were 
all  weakly  collapsed  about  the  room  from  laugh- 
ing. It  was  a  queer  gathering,  two  women  den- 
tists, French,  English,  and  American  nurses  and 
doctors,  aviators,  and  ourselves.  We  shan't  see 
the  Irish  Captain  again  for  he  is  going  home 
on  leave  for  five  months.  Perhaps  that  is  why 
he  was  so  joyous  for  he  hadn't  had  any  leave 
since  the  War  began.  When  it  was  all  over 
Monsieur  Martin  remarked:  "Eh  bien !  —  I 
have  found  that  the  Enghsh  are  not  so  cold  as 
I  thought." 

Well,  we  got  happily  home,  and  the  next  day 
I  took  Dr.  Brown  to  a  poste  near  the  front.  Did 
I  tell  you  that  we  were  given  gas  masks  and 
told  to  bring  them  every  time  we  went  there  ? 


96  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

Many  houses  in  these  bombarded  towns  look 
only  partially  demolished  on  the  outside,  but 
often  inside  there  is  nothing  left.  Sometimes 
half  the  house  or  the  upper  story  is  gone,  and 
people  are  still  living  in  the  rooms  below. 

In  one,  we  found  an  old  couple  who  are  still  run- 
ning their  bakery  in  the  downstairs  rooms,  and  there 
is  hterally  no  upstairs  at  all.  Six  shells  have  hit 
the  house.  When  we  said  that  we  thought  them 
courageous,  they  said,  "Que  voulez-vous .^  We 
are  not  rich  and  we  must  stay,  we  don't  want  to 
be  refugees." 

At  another  house  was  a  little  "patisserie."  We 
went  in  and  had  tea  and  the  woman  was  so 
pleased  to  have  us  that,  instead  of  letting  her- 
self be  paid,  she  gave  us  a  huge  bunch  of  roses. 
Though  most  of  the  houses  are  smashed,  and  grass 
is  growing  in  the  streets,  and  the  population  is  re- 
duced to  a  few,  those  that  stay  are  brave  and 
cheerful,  and  have  the  finest  spirit  of  comradeship 
that  you  can  imagine. 

The  other  day,  when  we  were  at  work  at  this 
poste,  the  Boche  started  a  cannonading  outside 
the  town.  We  could  see  the  shells  hit  with  a 
flash,  and  their  smoke.  The  people  said  :  "What 
is  the  matter  with  them  to-day?"  and  went  on 
about  their  affairs  as  if  nothing  extraordinary 
were  happening.     Most  of  the  people  Uve  in  their 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  97 

cellars,  and  don't  go  out  walking  much  in  the 
open,  and  carry  their  gas  masks. 

They  overwhelm  us  with  hospitality  and  kind- 
nesses. For  instance,  when  we  arrive.  Mile. 
Marie,  a  Httle  apple-faced  woman,  runs  to  her 
house  where  she  gets  a  huge  pot  of  steaming  hot 
chocolate  and  some  crackers  to  warm  us  after 
the  drive  from  Nancy.  She  does  it  every  time  we 
come.  Another  day  when  I  came,  my  face  was 
very  cold  from  the  wind.  A  young  girl  (who  is 
an  artist,  and  now  paints  sunset  scenes  on  burst 
shell  casings !) ,  immediately  sat  down  and  made 
me  a  fur  collar  out  of  the  skins  of  some  rabbits 
that  another  young  girl  had  raised  herself.  An- 
other time,  a  whole  band  of  forty  pieces  was 
ordered  out  to  give  a  concert  to  the  four  of  us, 
Dr.  Brown,  Mme.  Delabeck,  the  trained  nurse, 
and  myself.  The  band  is  one  that  belongs  to 
an  attacking  regiment,  and  is  now  "en  repos." 
The  men  are  stretcher  bearers  when  in  action. 
One  of  the  men  had  lived  in  Chicago,  and  spoke 
excellent  English.  They  played  beautiful  music, 
and  one  man  gave  some  songs  from  Carmen  to 
a  low  accompaniment.  While  the  band  was 
playing  softly  the  Germans  suddenly  turned  their 
guns  our  way  and  some  shells  went  over  us. 
The  band  went  right  on,  perfectly  unconcerned, 
and  ended  in  a  burst  of  martial  music.     When  it 


98  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

was  over  the  bandmaster  explained  that  the 
Germans  could  hear  us  and  had  probably  sent 
those  shells  over  to  see  if  they  could  "deranger 
la  musique." 

Dr.  Brown  is  given  all  kinds  of  presents,  flowers, 
baskets  of  apples,  just  Uke  a  country  minister 
at  home.  This  is  certainly  inspiring  work,  and 
especially  so  as  it  is  reconstructive.  There  is 
a  feeling  of  real  neighborliness  that  I  might 
almost  say  isn't  to  be  found  anywhere  else  in  the 
world.  You  can't  possibly  imagine  a  more  cheer- 
ful and  helpful  foundation  for  work. 

One  day  while  Dr.  Brown  was  giving  her  treat- 
ments she  did  not  need  Miss  Mitchell  and  me, 
so  we  took  a  walk  with  one  of  the  ofiQcials.  We 
went  along  a  road  and  were  told  to  be  very  careful 
about  walking  in  line  because  the  Boche  had 
shelled  the  road  at  that  time  the  day  before. 
I  took  a  picture  from  a  house  near  by,  and  I 
had  to  take  it  from  between  the  shutters,  because 
if  the  Boche  had  seen  the  open  window,  he  would 
have  "donne  un  coup  de  canon."  Then  we  went 
out  to  a  Poste  Avancee  very  near  the  German 
lines.  In  fact  we  went  to  within  two  hundred 
yards  of  them.  We  could  hear  torpedoes  and 
some  rifles  went  off,  which  caused  the  soldiers 
by  the  wayside  to  peer  cautiously  through  the 
burlap  camouflage  with  which  the  road  is  lined 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  99 

everywhere.  At  the  Poste  Avancee  they  were 
in  need  of  bandages,  so  we  brought  them  some 
the  next  day.  When  we  came  out  from  the 
Poste  we  had  to  speak  low  so  that  the  enemy 
shouldn't  hear  us,  and  Miss  Mitchell  had  to  hide 
her  red  scarf.  We  also  went  to  a  slope  from  which 
you  can  see  the  Boche  trenches  wonderfully, 
they  are  not  at  all  far  away,  —  in  fact  right 
there. 

Every  one  asks  us  for  flags,  from  the  Comman- 
dant of  the  famous  Chasseur  Regiment  of  the 
region,  to  the  Sisters  who  want  to  show  them 
to  the  children  in  the  little  schools  that  still  keep 
up. 

Things  look  about  as  black  as  they  can  now, 
don't  they?  It  looks  as  if  only  a  miracle  could 
save  the  East  from  the  grip  of  Germany,  yet  they 
must  be  beaten,  so  I  imagine  the  war  will  go  on 
and  on.  But  if  people  at  home  have  the  courage 
of  those  here,  we  can't  help  winning  in  the  end. 
Does  France  seem  so  far  away  to  Americans  that 
they  won't  be  able  to  see  why  Germany  has  to  be 
beaten  ? 

Speaking  of  atrocities,  I  saw  a  woman  yester- 
day, who  herself  saw  her  neighbor's  child  of  three 
killed  in  its  mother's  arms,  when  the  Germans 
were  there  early  in  the  war.  We  took  her  own 
child  over  to  the  hospital  here  because  its  arm  had 


100  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

become  so  bad  from  a  wound  given  by  a  German 
at  that  time,  that  it  had  to  be  amputated. 

We  went  one  day  to  Bois-le-Pretre  to  see  the 
famous  fountain  where,  even  during  the  hardest 
fighting  early  in  the  war,  the  French  and  Germans 
both  went  for  water.  It  now  belongs  to  the 
French,  though  it  isn't  far  from  the  German 
lines.  While  we  were  there  some  shells  whistled 
overhead,  and  dropped  in  the  woods,  smashing 
the  trees,  and  some  torpedoes  went  off  farther 
away.  We  had  tea,  consisting  of  cakes  and 
champagne,  in  an  abri  with  the  Commandant 
and  some  of  his  officers,  and  visited  some  trenches, 
but  not  front  line  ones. 

When  we  were  walking  through  the  woods  in  a 
perfect  tangle  of  barbed  wire  and  trenches,  we 
came  to  a  kind  of  furrow  in  the  ground.  The 
Commandant  pointed  to  it  and  said  to  me  that 
it  was  the  second  hne  of  defense.  If  they  had 
to  retreat,  they  would  go  as  far  as  that.  Like  a 
fool,  I  said  :  "But  suppose  you  have  to  go  farther, 
where  do  you  go?"  He  made  me  a  low  and  gra- 
cious bow  and  said:  "Mademoiselle,  we  go  no 
farther,  we  die." 

Paris,  December  27,  1917. 

I  am  here  for  a  week  in  Uncle  Owen's  apart- 
ment,   before   starting   with   Mrs.    Lee   for   the 


BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  AT  NANCY  101 

Chambery  depot  day  after  to-morrow.  Uncle 
Owen  and  Marie  have  just  gone  south  for  the 
winter,  and  isn't  it  dear  of  them  to  let  me  stay 
on  here  with  the  maids  P 

The  day  before  Christmas  was  full,  and  spent 
in  taking  bags  to  hospitals.  In  the  evening  I  went 
to  the  same  canteen  as  last  year,  and  the  same 
things  were  done  again,  until  just  before  the  end, 
when  all  of  Boston  somehow  appeared,  and  we 
sang  Christmas  carols,  led  by  Dr.  Cabot !  I  saw 
Nora  Saltonstall  and  Hannah  Fiske,  who  said 
she  was  so  glad  to  get  here  where  she  could  get 
something  to  eat.  Also  Miss  Curtis  and  Hilda 
WilKams  were  there  and  Griette,  who  looked  well 
but  tired.  It  was  nice  to  get  a  glimpse  of  them 
all  for  every  one  is  so  busy  that  it  is  practically 
impossible  to  see  people  except  by  the  most  tre- 
mendous effort,  and  every  one  is  always  out  except 
in  the  evening,  when  it  is  impossible  to  get  about. 

On  Christmas  afternoon  I  went  to  Mrs.  N.'s 
to  a  party  of  stray  Americans.  It  was  so  nice 
and  Christmas-y,  with  a  tiny  tree  in  the  corner 
for  the  babies.  We  had  tea  and  cakes,  and  Gar- 
neau  had  sent  some  sugar  from  the  front  for  the 
party,  but  unfortunately  he  had  sent  it  in  a  to- 
bacco tin,  and  it  tasted  of  the  tobacco,  greatly 
to  Mrs.  N.'s  distress,  so  she  used  up  all  her 
own  allowance  for  the  party,  and  expects  to  use 


102  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

the  tobacco-flavored  sugar  for  the  next  month, 
herself. 

Then  in  the  evening,  I  asked  Marie's  family 
to  dine  with  me,  and  we  had  a  very  nice  time,  so 
that's  how  Christmas  passed,  but  all  the  time  I 
was  longing  to  be  at  home  with  you. 


CHAPTER  VI 
Chambery  and  Our  Soldiers  on  Leave 

Hotel  de  France, 
Chambery,  Jan.  5,  1918. 

I  AM  sitting  in  my  room  in  the  hotel  with  my 
feet  on  the  radiator,  and  the  window  wide  open. 
Outside  is  the  most  romantic  line  of  chimney 
pots  against  the  "mountains  of  eternal  snow," 
which  at  this  moment  are  of  a  luminous  rose 
color,  and  swathed  in  a  veil  of  pale  mists,  making 
them  seem  infinitely  high. 

Coming  up  in  the  train  the  other  day  we  met  a 
chasseur,  who  was  stationed  in  Belgium,  and  asked 
him  if  he  thought  there  would  be  an  advance 
there.  He  simply  said,  "No,  because  it  takes 
sixteen  hours  to  advance  400  meters,  on  account 
of  the  mud."  Then  he  said  that  the  men  carry- 
ing their  packs  on  their  backs  have  to  be  tied 
together  by  ropes  in  order  not  to  drown  in  it,  and 
every  time  they  take  a  step  they  have  to  pull 
each  foot  out  with  both  hands.  Also  they  get 
their  food  by  passing  it  along,  on  the  principle 

103 


104  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

of  an  old-fashioned  fire  bucket  line  and  the  end 
ones  get  it  cold  on  account  of  the  distance,  or  if 
there  isn't  enough,  don't  get  it  at  all.  The  mud 
is  icy  cold  and  they  have  orders  to  cut  their 
overcoats  off  above  the  mud,  which  comes  half 
way  up  the  thigh.  At  the  end  of  eight  days 
you  can  imagine  how  warm  they  are  and  their 
overcoats  can't  be  lengthened  again.  An  officer 
here  told  us  the  other  night  that  it  was  even  worse 
at  Verdun,  because  they  were  being  shot  at  and 
shelled  in  addition.  He  had  seen  his  men  drown 
in  the  mud  ten  feet  in  front  of  him,  "as  far  off  as 
that  table,"  he  said,  and  he  and  the  nearest  man 
to  him  were  powerless  to  save  them,  though  they 
sank  slowly.  He  said  there  wasn't  a  single  man 
in  his  regiment  who  was  there  at  the  beginning. 
They  were  all  killed  or  wounded  or  just  couldn't 
go  on.  After  one  attack  and  before  another, 
sometimes  a  man,  who  had  been  as  brave  as 
could  be  the  first  time,  would  just  sit  down  and 
cry  and  say  he  couldn't  go  on.  It  wasn't  be- 
cause he  was  a  coward  either,  but  because  he 
had  simply  come  to  the  end  of  his  powers ! 

The  officer  who  told  us  all  this  belonged  to  the 
"Iron  Regiment"  of  the  "Troupes  d'Afrique," 
which  we  saw  several  months  ago  in  Bois  le 
Pretre.  These  troops  are  always  used  for  attack. 
He  was  a  strange -looking  man  with  black  hair  and 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         105 

a  dark  complexion,  and  intense  hazel  eyes.  He 
spoke  quietly  but  with  suppressed  fire.  He 
looked  as  if  he  might  have  some  queer  Arab 
mixture  in  him.  Then  he  calmly  said  that  the 
War  couldn't  end  till  1920,  he  thought,  to 
thoroughly  beat  the  Germans,  but  that  would 
be  done  eventually.  We  hear  that,  at  all  times 
and  from  all  sides,  and  everywhere  they  say  that 
1918  will  be  the  worst  year,  because  Germany 
knows  America's  latent  power,  and  knows  she 
must  win  before  we  can  get  in.  The  French  all 
say  they  can  hold  on  till  we  get  in,  but  they  count 
on  us  to  win. 

A  sweet,  dimpled  httle  French  boy  in  the 
train,  who  had  just  graduated  from  the  School  of 
ArtiUery,  told  us  that  he  had  been  training  with 
the  Americans,  whom  he  described  as  "beaux" 
and  "grands."  Every  morning  before  drill,  he 
said,  they  felt  cold,  so  they  lined  the  French  up 
on  one  side  and  the  Americans  on  the  other  and 
boxed.  Their  "kepis"  and  the  American  hats 
went  every  which  way.  They  didn't  speak 
each  other's  language,  —  "but  we  understood 
each  other  very  well."  One  American  cut  a 
Frenchman's  head  open  with  his  fist  by  mis- 
take, —  "but  they  were  friends,  so  it  didn't 
matter." 

We  have  just  got  settled  in  our  depot,  and 


106  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

to-morrow  some  medecin-chefs  are  coming  to  see 
us  and  our  supplies. 

Chambery,  Jan.  20,  1918. 

Last  week,  at  Lyons,  we  met  some  refugees  from 
near  Cambrai  who  had  been  evacuated  through 
Holland  to  France.  There  were  a  lot  of  them 
with  their  children,  carrying  their  worldly  goods 
done  up  in  blankets.  Two,  a  man  and  his  wife 
whom  we  talked  to,  seemed  to  be  of  better  class 
than  the  others,  and  we  learned  that  they  had 
kept  a  rather  large  store.  They  thought  we  were 
Enghsh,  therefore  what  they  said  about  the  United 
States  was  not  said  to  flatter  us.  They  told  us 
that  had  it  not  been  for  the  American  food  they 
would  have  died  of  starvation  before  now,  but 
that  the  food  rehef  was  admirably  well  admin- 
istered, and  that  it  is  sacred,  i.e.  the  Germans  even 
now  don't  dare  touch  it.  They  got  once  a  month 
rice,  flour,  cereals,  salt  meat  (they'd  had  no 
fresh  meat  since  the  beginning  of  the  war),  cocoa, 
sugar,  and  condensed  milk.  The  Germans  took 
all  such  things  as  milk  and  eggs  for  themselves. 
Also,  as  they  were  supposed  to  reap  a  certain 
amount  of  the  harvest  for  the  civilian  popula- 
tion, and  give  it  to  them,  the  Germans  substi- 
tuted the  bad  flour  they  made  for  the  good  flour 
sent  from  the  United  States  for  the  refugees. 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON  LEAVE        107 

The  result  was  that  the  refugees  got  all  bad  flour. 
They  said  the  bread  was  like  glue,  and  pulled  out 
in  long  strings  like  molasses  candy  when  bitten, 
and  all  their  teeth  fell  out. 

The  German  doctors  were  supposed  to  take 
care  of  them.  The  way  they  did  it  was  to  give 
them  advice  that  could  not  be  followed  as  to 
diet  and  prescriptions  —  there  were  no  drugs 
there — ,  then  they  laughed  at  the  patients'  dis- 
may! 

The  Germans  themselves  haven't  enough  to 
eat.  The  troops  in  the  first-hne  trenches  are 
given  enough,  but  those  in  the  rear  are  not. 
The  young  boys  of  seventeen  and  eighteen  came 
and  asked  the  civihans  for  bread  frequently, 
but  they  haven't  enough  themselves,  so  they 
could  not  give  them  any. 

Another  thing  they  said  was  that  the  discipline 
in  the  German  army  is  terrific.  Men  are  shot 
for  the  shghtest  thing,  because  the  officers  fear 
revolt.  The  officers  and  men  have  different 
newspapers,  also.  If  a  man  reads  or  repeats 
news  from  his  officer's  paper  which  is  not  in  his 
own  paper,  he  is  punished.  The  queer  part  of  it 
is,  that  the  men  don't  want  to  read  the  officers' 
papers,  they  are  so  submissive  by  nature.  For 
that  reason  some  of  them  didn't  know  for  months 
that  the  United  States  was  in  the  war. 


108  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

I  asked  them  whether  they  had  known  of  such 
atrocities  as  the  cutting  off  of  children's  hands. 
They  said,  "No,"  that  to  be  fair  to  the  Germans 
they  could  not  say  they  had,  but  they  had  known 
wholesale  violation  of  young  girls ;  that,  however, 
was  in  the  beginning  of  the  war.  It  still  occurred 
now,  of  course,  but,  where  they  were,  not  publicly 
sanctioned.  They  said  they  thought  the  first 
troops  sent  into  Belgium  and  France  must  have 
been  picked  for  their  criminal  quahties,  as  those 
that  had  come  there  since  were  not  the  same, 
though  they  were  all  barbarians. 

The  officers,  they  thought,  must  be  sent  to  a 
regular  school  to  learn  how  to  loot  as  part  of 
their  training.  Whenever  they  came  to  a  town 
they  went  into  each  house  and  made  an  inventory 
of  each  room,  which  they  pasted  on  the  waU  of 
the  room.  If,  after  that,  an  inhabitant  of  the 
house  moved  so  much  as  a  knife  or  a  spoon  from 
one  room  to  another,  he  was  punished.  The 
officers  would  send  soldiers  to  requisition  things  in 
the  houses.  One  day  they  would  come  and  take 
four  chairs,  for  instance,  chop  them  up  before 
their  owners'  eyes,  and  tell  them  they  were  for 
firewood  and  take  them  away  in  a  cart.  An- 
other time  they  would  take  candlesticks,  beds, 
blankets,  china,  and  everything,  with  no  explana- 
tion.    A  day  or  two  later  the  people  would  see 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         109 

their  things  going  to  the  rear,  dumped  in  a  cart 
with  old  stoves  and  pipes,  all  mixed  together  with 
pictures,  bronze  statues,  etc. 

One  day,  they  said,  two  English  aviators  were 
brought  down  over  the  town.  All  the  people 
felt  very  sad,  and  some  went  about  weeping. 
The  next  day  they  were  forbidden  to  go  to  the 
funeral  over  which  the  Germans  were  rejoicing. 
Every  one  went  just  the  same.  They  were  for- 
bidden to  put  flowers  on  the  graves.  The  Ger- 
mans placed  a  guard  in  hiding  to  take  down  the 
names  of  those  who  went,  nevertheless,  and 
covered  the  graves  with  flowers.  Every  one  was 
punished.  I  asked  what  the  punishment  was. 
They  said  to  have  manacles  on  their  hands  and 
live  on  bread  and  water  for  four  days  and  sweep 
the  streets.  One  old  man,  who  used  to  be  a 
millionaire,  they  said,  was  made  to  do  it,  too. 
The  Germans  are  no  respecters  of  persons.  To 
shock  the  inhabitants,  they  used  the  churches  for 
cafes  and  cinemas.  When  the  cure  objected, 
he  was  punished. 

I  must  tell  you  about  the  Belgian  military 
tuberculosis  hospital  at  Chambery.  There  are 
one  hundred  and  twenty-five  men  in  it,  hardly 
one  of  whom  knows  what  has  become  of  his 
family.  There  is  every  kind  of  man,  some  speak 
English,  French,  and  Flemish,  others  only  Flemish. 


no  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

There  are  only  men  infirmiers,  one  to  each  ward 
of  fifty,  to  take  care  of  the  patients,  and  doctors 
and  infirmiers  are  both  tired  out. 

The  one  bright  ray  of  sunshine  in  the  place  is 
a  brave  Englishwoman,  Lady  Baird,  but  she  is 
perfectly  worn  out  and  must  take  a  rest  soon. 
I  don't  see  how  she  stands  it.  She  says  the  men 
are  so  patient  and  cheerful.  They  have  nothing. 
Some  who  are  well  enough  can't  go  out  because 
they  have  no  shoes,  so  they  have  to  stay  in.  Of 
course  she  and  we  are  trying  to  get  them  things 
that  they  need.  They  had  but  one  wash  basin 
for  fifty  men,  they  had  no  screens  at  all.  Lady 
Baird  bought  some,  as  she  found  that  even  the 
men  who  were  dying  were  left  in  the  wards  with 
the  others  talking  around  them. 

When  we  went  there  with  comfort  bags  the 
men  were  very  shy.  They  had  seen  scarcely 
any  one  but  Lady  Baird.  They  said  "Merci," 
sometimes  "Merci,  de  tout  coeur."  When  we 
left,  instead  of  the  usual  gayety  that  follows  in 
the  wake  of  the  bags,  they  were  nearly  all  weep- 
ing because  they  were  so  glad  that  somebody  had 
come  to  see  them,  and  cared  a  httle  about  them. 
Some  of  the  bags  had  lovely  letters  in  them. 
Lady  Baird  was  weeping,  too,  and  we  were  on 
the  verge  of  collapse,  and  the  Ford  wouldn't 
budge  from  the  door! 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE        111 

Now  Lady  Baird  has  got  them  to  make  out  a 
hst  of  books  that  they'd  Hke,  which  occupies 
them,  and  I'm  going  to  get  them  some  with 
the  money  you  sent  over.  I  saw  only  one  book 
in  the  whole  place.  The  Hbrarian  here  is  very 
nice.  When  I  told  him  they  were  books  for  the 
tuberculous  Belgians  because  the  time  seemed 
so  long  to  them,  he  said:  "Ah  yes,  Made- 
moiselle, I  know,  I  have  tuberculosis  myself." 
He  was  waiting  to  go  to  a  sanitarium  in  Swit- 
zerland and  has  added  books  himself  to  those 
they  asked  for. 

Chambery. 

I  inclose  some  letters  of  thanks  from  two 
hospitals  to  which  I  sent  periodicals  from  the 
money  given  me  for  that  purpose  by  the  "Tran- 
script" readers,  some  of  whose  names  are  unknown 
to  me.  Of  course  the  soldiers  thank  me  as  repre- 
senting the  givers. 

It's  rather  pathetic,  isn't  it,  to  end  up  by  wish- 
ing me  a  long  life,  when  many  of  them  are  prob- 
ably dying. 

Perhaps  you  can  translate  the  letters  and  put 
them  in  the  "Transcript,"  in  order  that  people 
may  see  that  their  gifts  really  are  appreciated, 
and  are  giving  pleasure. 


m    BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

Translation 

LETTER  FROM  THE  SOLDIERS  AT  THE  HOSPITAL  AT 

VANNES 

Madame : 

It  is  with  profound  joy  and  veritable  pleasure 
that  we  frequently  receive  the  illustrated  peri- 
odicals, which  your  great  generosity  and  kindness 
have  been  the  means  of  sending  us. 

This  gesture  is  the  more  charming,  the  more 
noble,  that  it  is  addressed  to  all  this  httle  colony 
of  sick  men ;  it  is  truly  a  good  work. 

I  assure  you,  Madame,  that  this  is  well  under- 
stood at  our  hospital.  Every  one  has  the  benefit 
of  them,  all  read  them  with  pleasure,  and  it  is 
upon  the  urgent  demand  of  all,  and  in  the  name 
of  all,  that  I  address  to  you  our  most  sincere 
and  grateful  thanks. 

This  gracious  gift  provides  us,  not  only  a  moment 
of  diversion,  in  which  we  forget  our  physical 
sufferings,  but  it  is  also  a  precious  moral  support, 
which  in  our  case  is  of  inestimable  help. 

In  return  for  this  good  deed,  receive,  Madame, 
from  all  your  grateful,  poor,  sick  men  (de  tons  vos 
petits  malades  reconnaissants)  their  best  wishes 
for  your  health,  long  life,  and  happiness,  as  well 
as  their  renewed  thanks. 

Fifteen  signatures. 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         113 

Translation 

Hopital  de  Trebeurden. 
Madame : 

Wounded  or  ill,  we  have  all  the  care  needed  at 
the  hospital ;  we  lacked  only  occupation  for  the 
mind,  but,  thanks  to  your  sohcitude,  we  now  have 
the  means  of  diversion,  and  it  is  with  keen  pleas- 
ure that  we  thank  you  for  your  gift  of  books, 
periodicals,  and  magazines. 

When  we  shall  have  returned  to  our  homes  after 
victory,  when  we  recount  to  our  children  the 
episodes  of  this  formidable  war,  we  shall  tell 
them  of  the  generous  way  in  which  you  came  to 
relieve  our  sufferings,  and  share  our  common 
sacrifices,  for  the  defense  of  our  just  cause. 

We  want  them,  too,  to  keep  in  their  hearts  a 
place  of  honor  for  your  noble  American  nation. 
A  group  of  grateful  soldiers, 
A.  Carow,  Motor  Driver, 
gind  ten  others. 

Chambery,  Jan.  27,  1918. 

How  good  that  G.  is  a  first  lieutenant.  I  am 
terribly  proud  of  him,  aren't  you  ?  Rut,  oh,  how 
I  hate  to  think  of  his  being  in  the  War.  There 
is  so  much  that  the  boys  can't  imagine,  possibly. 
Any  one  can  stand  the  fighting,  but  the  sitting 


114  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

in  the  mud  for  days  with  nothing  to  do,  and  the 
dirt,  and  the  routine,  and  the  oppressive  boredom 
is  what  tires  and  tests  them.  If  they  don't 
have  ideals,  they  are  lost,  —  there  is  no  just  get- 
ting along  ;  they  either  live  by  their  ideals,  or  lose 
them.  I  don't  beheve  there's  any  middle  way. 
I  don't  worry  about  that  for  G.,  for  he  is  an  ideahst 
anyway,  but  I'm  afraid  he  will  have  moments  of 
agony  of  mind  more  intense  than  we  can  imagine. 
It's  impossible  for  us  to  know  what  the  soldiers 
go  through,  and  the  more  I  see  of  them,  the  more 
I'm  convinced  that  I  know  nothing  at  all  about 
the  war. 

I  often  wish  that  I  could  do  some  definite  good 
somewhere,  or  rather  see  the  results  of  it.  We 
see  hundreds  of  wounded  once  or  twice,  and  they 
are  such  dears,  just  like  children  in  the  way  they 
tell  us  httle  things  about  themselves  that  bubble 
forth,  but  we  never  stay  long  enough  anywhere 
to  see  them  get  well,  or  even  improve.  We  pass 
on,  with  a  memory  of  a  face  or  a  voice,  or  even 
that  indefinite  thing  called  atmosphere,  and  we 
never  know  whether  they  get  well,  or  die  (though 
sometimes  that  is  all  too  evident),  or  whether  they 
see  their  famihes  again,  or  a  miUion  and  one  other 
things  that  they  tell  us  about  so  eagerly. 

The  other  day  when  we  were  giving  out  "sacs 
surprises"  in  the  hospital  here,  we  went  down  the 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         115 

ward,  talking  to  the  men  as  usual  as  we  gave  out 
the  bags,  explaining  about  chewing  gum  and 
corncob  pipes,  and  translating  the  letters  written 
in  English,  till  we  came  to  the  end  of  the  ward. 
There,  singing  in  his  bed,  was  a  little  Relgian  sol- 
dier. We'd  seen  him  at  the  Relgian  hospital  a 
few  days  before,  and,  when  we  came  along,  he 
stopped  singing,  and  said,  "Ron  jour."  I  said, 
"You  are  singing  this  morning  ;  are  you  happy?" 
He  smiled  a  little,  and  then  said,  "No,  Made- 
moiselle, but  they  cut  off  my  leg  this  morning ; 
it  hurts,  and  I  feel  as  if  I  must  cry,  so  I  sing  in- 
stead, that  no  one  may  know,"  and  he  went  on 
humming  softly  to  himself.  He  seemed  no  more 
than  eighteen. 

Opposite  him  was  a  very  sick-looking  man. 
The  doctor  stopped,  and  told  us  he  was  a  Ger- 
man. "Shall  we  give  him  a  bagp"  we  asked  the 
doctor.  He  wouldn't  say  ;  do  as  we  please.  We 
still  asked,  "Shall  we?"  Then  came  a  kind  of 
chorus  from  the  nearest  sick  men,  "Mais  oui, 
oui,  donnez,  Mesdames,"  and  the  little  Relgian 
nodded  his  head  in  the  middle  of  his  song.  Mrs. 
Lee  took  the  bag  over  to  the  Roche.  He  looked 
surprised,  and  then  said:  "Rut  I'm  a  German." 
Mrs.  Lee  told  him  that  he  was  no  longer  an  enemy, 
now  that  he  was  sick,  and  he  just  clutched  the  bag 
with  a  whispered  "  Merci,"  and  shut  his  eyes  tight. 


116  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

Chambery,  February  6,  1918. 

There  is  some  really  thrilling  news  to  tell  you 
about  Chambery  :  it  is  about  to  become  a  recrea- 
tion center  for  American  soldiers  on  leave.  They 
are  to  come  at  the  rate  of  about  two  hundred  a 
week  to  Aix,  Challes,  and  Chambery.  Ten  dif- 
ferent recreation  centers  are  being  arranged,  to 
which  the  American  soldiers  may  go.  Each 
man  may  choose  which  place  he  prefers,  or,  if  he 
has  no  choice,  he  may  go  the  regular  round,  a 
"leave"  in  each  place.  The  object  is,  of  course, 
to  keep  them  out  of  the  big  cities,  and  to  give 
them  so  good  a  time  that  they  won't  want  to  go 
to  them.  In  fact,  they  are  not  to  be  allowed  to 
go  to  them.  Of  course  this  applies  only  to  men ; 
oJBficers  may  go  where  they  choose. 

All  the  hotels  at  Chambery  have  been  taken 
over  by  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  and  are  to  be  used  for 
the  men.  In  that  way,  they  feel  they  are  really 
having  a  vacation,  and  yet  there  is  no  chance  of 
undesirable  people  coming  to  them.  In  fact, 
even  the  maids  are  to  sleep  elsewhere,  and  Mrs. 
Lee  and  I  are  to  have  a  little  suite  to  ourselves, 
in  an  "  L  "  that  is  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  the  hotel, 
but  are  to  have  our  meals  in  the  dining  room, 
which  is  expected  to  have  a  good  influence. 
Every  one  else,  except  one  elderly  Frenchwoman, 
has  to  leave  the  hotel.     I  think  the  same  arrange- 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         117 

ments  are  being  made  in  aU.  the  other  places. 
These  beautiful,  empty,  pre-war  watering-places 
lend  themselves  admirably  to  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
plan,  which  I  believe  is  General  Pershing's,  and 
carried  out  by  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 

Mrs.  Lee  and  I  feel  the  weight  of  the  nation 
upon  us,  as  the  people  here  regard  us  as  pillars 
of  support.  Madame  R.  asked  us  how  often 
it  was  expected  that  the  town  would  be  shot  up ! 
I  certainly  am  in  luck  to  see,  first,  our  first  battal- 
ion on  its  way  to  the  front,  and  the  French  im- 
pressions therefrom,  and  then  the  organization 
for,  and  arrival  of  the  first  batch  on  leave,  and  the 
ensuing  opinion  also.  It's  just  luck  it  happened 
that  way. 

The  people  of  the  town  have  organized  a  com- 
mittee of  hospitality  for  the  soldiers ;  they  have 
planned  excursions  for  them,  arranged  to  meet 
them  at  the  train,  —  all  this  is  to  be  actively 
CEU-ried  out  by  those  who  can  speak  English,  and 
a  certain  number  are  going  to  help  them  shop. 
They  have  also  arranged  to  give  them  a  Club 
House  where  they  can  read,  write,  smoke,  play 
games,  and  eat  their  luncheon,  and  get  hot  choco- 
late, tea,  and  coffee,  between  excursions.  There 
also  will  be  a  room  where  they  will  have  a  chance 
to  meet  "convenable"  French  people  of  the  town, 
with  the  aid  of  the  English-speaking  ones,  and  the 


118  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

Y.  M.  C.  A.  ladies  and  men  who  are  coming  to 
live  there,  and  do  most  of  the  actual  running  of 
the  club.  All  this,  the  French  committee,  burst- 
ing with  enthusiasm,  told  Mr.  Cate  who  is  making 
the  arrangements  here,  and  he,  being  just  the 
right,  tactful  kind  of  person,  of  course  agreed  at 
once,  only  dropping  suggestions  where  they'd 
best  take  root,  and  then  going  away  and  letting 
the  French  people  run  it  themselves,  and  now 
we  have  been  asked  to  their  next  meeting  to  hear 
their  plans,  and  tell  them  what  we  can  that  may 
help.  Monsieur  Lugon  says  that  they  intend  to 
ask  Mrs.  Lee  and  me  to  get  the  furnishings  for  the 
Club,  as  we  would  know  better  what  our  boys 
would  like.  The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  has  offered  funds, 
I  believe. 

Besides,  they  are  to  have  all  the  sports  they  like, 
and  the  theater  to  use  as  they  want.  American 
and  English  companies  are  coming  to  play  in  it. 
All  the  grocers  and  shopkeepers  have  been  as- 
sembled, and  have  agreed  to  uniform  prices,  and 
a  price  Hst  is  being  put  up  in  hotels  and  in  the 
shops,  so  that  the  soldier  shall  not  be  "done," 
or  the  prices  rise  too  high  for  the  people  here. 
This  is  done  in  all  the  towns  where  United  States 
troops  go.  Also,  they  are  going  to  have  a  goodly 
number  of  American  films  in  the  cinemas.  In 
fact,  the  whole  town  is  agog,  and  we  are  too ! 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         119 

There  is  being  organized  by  the  French  people 
a  society,  called  "The  French  Homes,"  the  object  of 
which  is  to  have  nice  French  families  meet  Ameri- 
can soldiers,  and  French  officers  receive  American 
officers  in  their  houses,  with  the  hope  that  they 
may  become  real  friends .  Thus  the  American  may 
feel  he  knows  a  family  here,  and  ultimately  the 
two  nations  may  understand  each  other  better. 
This  is  approved  by  the  French  authorities  and  by 
the  American,  and  is  so  worked  out  by  both, 
that  if  a  soldier,  who  is  a  lawyer  by  profession, 
for  instance,  wants  to  go  to  the  seashore,  to  a 
French  family,  his  apphcation  is  sent  in  to  the 
United  States  Headquarters  ;  he  is  looked  up,  and 
if  his  record  is  all  right,  he  is  sent  to  the  family 
of  a  French  lawyer  at  the  seashore,  who  has  been 
looked  up  by  the  "French  Homes"  Society,  and 
is  on  their  lists.  All  right  in  that  case,  but 
can't  you  see  an  enhghtened  and  keen  American 
farmer  from  the  West,  landing  on  a  French 
peasant?  I  hope  they  have  some  provision  for 
cases  like  that. 

Chambery,  February  22,  1918. 

We  went  to  Grenoble  last  week,  and  visited 
the  hospitals  there.  Nothing  unusual  about  them  ; 
they  were  comparatively  empty,  as  are  all  the 
hospitals  in  this  region  now.     One  hospital,  in 


120  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

a  convent,  was  in  the  most  beautiful  place  I 
have  ever  seen  anywhere.  It  was  above  Grenoble, 
on  the  "hill"  opposite  the  Grande  Chartreuse. 
From  it  you  could  see  the  whole  range,  covered 
with  new-fallen  snow,  and  the  whole  valley  down 
to  Mt.  Blanc  and  up  to  Aix-les-Bains,  tinted  with 
the  colors  of  spring  and  blue  mist.  Each  soldier 
had  beside  his  bed  a  bowl,  in  which  were  little 
wild  violet  and  primrose  plants.  The  place  was 
clean,  and  very  poor,  but  the  sisters  made  the 
soldiers  as  happy  as  could  be.  In  peace  times 
I  beheve  they  are  cloistered  nuns.  I  often  wonder 
if  they  ever  can  go  back  to  it,  after  this  very  human 
joy  of  taking  care  of  their  soldier  "enfants." 
Just  below  the  convent  was  a  graveyard,  and 
there  we  saw  one  of  the  little  sisters  going  from 
grave  to  grave,  saying  a  prayer  at  each. 

In  another  hospital,  we  found  a  doctor  who  had 
been  wounded  earlier  in  the  war,  and  had  been 
nursed  at  Neuilly.  Among  his  patients  were 
many  Arabs,  and  the  hospital  was  installed  in 
what  was  meant  for  a  huge  factory,  but  the  ma- 
chinery had  never  been  put  into  the  long  rooms. 
He  had  had  a  push  cart  made  for  the  dressings 
and  food,  and  little  bed  tables  for  the  men.  He 
showed  them  to  us  with  pride,  and  then  hastily 
added:  "But  it  isn't  original;  I  learned  it  from 
the  Americans  at  Neuilly."    He  also  had  started 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         121 

a  library  for  his  men,  comprising  books  on  agricul- 
ture and  trade,  because  a  great  many  of  the  sol- 
diers, he  said,  knew  nothing  much  about  their 
trades,  or  any  trade.  It  would  be  important, 
after  the  war,  that  they  should  be  "instruits"  in 
something,  so  he  had  that  library  for  them  to  use 
during  their  convalescence,  and  many  of  them  were 
glad  to  have  an  opportunity  to  study.  He  was 
a  very  young  doctor,  and  had  been  wounded  in 
the  back,  and  was  quite  lame,  but  he  must  be 
rather  brilliant,  as  he  was  the  Medecin-chef  of  a 
very  large  hospital,  mostly  for  those  who  were 
recovering  from  their  wounds,  but  not  well  enough 
to  dispense  with  care  and  dressings. 

Then  we  came  back  here  and  thrill  of  thriUs, 
the  Americans  have  arrived !  They  came  to 
Aix  first,  and  what  excitement !  They  had  a 
French  band  and  a  colored  band,  and  both  bands 
paraded  up  and  down  the  streets  until  every  one 
thought  they'd  burst  from  exertion.  You  can 
imagine  the  effect  the  colored  band  had  on  the 
inhabitants ! 

Then  two  days  later  a  trainload  of  them 
arrived  at  Chambery.  They  are  regulars,  over 
a  hundred  of  them,  and,  with  the  exception 
of  about  six,  are  as  clean  and  well-behaved  a 
lot  of  men  as  you  could  expect  to  see  any- 
where.    In  fact,  they  are   making  an   excellent 


122  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

impression,  and  we  are  most  awfully  proud  of 
them.  There  must  be  about  seventy  swarming 
about  in  this  hotel,  and  they  don't  do  any  of  the 
things  one  would  expect  of  rough  soldiers.  They 
don't  yeU  up  and  down  the  corridors,  they  don't 
eat  with  their  knives,  they  don't  trample  mud 
all  over  the  place,  or  come  in  noisy  at  all  hours. 
Instead,  they  get  shaves  and  shoe  shines  and 
baths,  until  they  glisten,  grin  and  say  "good 
mornin'  ma'am,"  and  "good  evenin',"  sing  senti- 
mental songs,  or  rather  bellow  them,  at  the  piano, 
and  play  cards  and  billiards,  and  read  books,  and 
are  insatiable  about  "seein'  the  sights."  First, 
they  walk  about  the  town,  most  erect  and  proper, 
in  groups,  and  then  they  make  for  the  "environgs" 
on  bicycles  of  every  sort  and  description,  mostly 
painted  bright  purple.  Sometimes  they  whiz, 
sometimes  they  wobble  down  the  streets.  One 
hears,  "Hi,  there.  Bill,  where  you  goin'.^" 
"Dunno,  but  I'm  still  goin',"  comes  from  Bill, 
and  he  wobbles  adroitly  into  the  "fontaine  des 
elephants,"  which,  however,  remains  calm,  even 
though  charged  by  American  infantry. 

Last  night,  after  dinner,  we  found  Sergeant 
B.  in  the  salon  immersed  in  a  book,  and  lost  to 
the  world.  We  were  talking  to  some  others,  and, 
all  of  a  sudden,  out  came  the  most  tremendous 
guffaw,  "Ha-haw-haw"  from  Sergeant  B.,  who  is 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         123 

immense,  over  six  feet,  and  blond.  He  was 
reading  the  "First  Hundred  Thousand"  and  had 
got  to  where  Private  Mucklewame  became  mixed 
up  with  himself,  trying  to  obey  orders.  Ser- 
geant B.  said  it  was  just  like  that  at  first. 

They  really  are  as  upright  and  manly  a  lot  of 
men  as  you  could  expect  to  see  anywhere,  the  world 
over.  It  is  great  fun  to  hear  them  discuss  the 
"greenhorns,"  —  mihtia,  draft,  and  the  Platts- 
burg  officers.  The  highest  praise  they  can  give 
is  to  say  emphatically,  "He's  a  white  man." 

Saturday,  Monsieur  le  Maire  gave  a  reception 
for  them  in  the  Mairie.  It  was  aU  decorated 
with  flags  and  flowers.  The  Mayor  made  a 
speech,  which  was  translated ;  the  band  played  the 
"Star-spangled  Banner"  ;  Major  Edmonds  made 
an  excellent  speech  in  reply,  and  the  band  played 
the  "Marseillaise,"  while  our  boys,  so  straight 
and  fine,  stood  at  attention,  saluting.  AU  the 
French  people  stood  around  and  admired  them. 
Then  they  drank  to  the  health  of  the  United 
States,  and  Monsieur  le  Maire  gave  his  arm  to 
Mrs.  Lee  when  he  proposed  the  toast.  Every 
one  drank  the  health  of  France,  America,  and 
their  Allies.  We  were  presented  with  bouquets 
of  flowers,  as  were  aU  the  English-speaking  ladies 
there. 

These  soldiers  were  sent  from  America  in  secret ; 


124  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

they  had  no  send-off,  and  this  was  the  first 
thing  that  had  been  done  for  them.  They  loved 
it,  and  smiled  shyly,  and  bowed  with  funny,  stiff 
bows  to  the  French  ladies  who  endeavored  to 
entertain  them,  while  they  sipped  champagne, 
which  a  little  boy,  who  told  me  he'd  been  brought 
up  in  an  orphan  asylum,  said  he'd  never  seen  the 
"likes  of"  before.  Needless  to  say,  none  of  them 
got  too  much,  as  they  explained,  "that  was  a 
swell  party  the  French  gave  to  honor  us,"  and 
you  can  just  beUeve  they  were  being  an  honor  to 
their  country  with  all  their  might. 

We've  got  to  know  some  of  them  really  well : 
Corporal  Hackett,  who  was  the  first  man  wounded 
(a  shell  burst  and  killed  his  best  friend,  on  whose 
knees  his  head  was  resting) ;  Privates  Gray  and 
Osborne,  the  latter  being  the  man  who  put  up  the 
telephone  line,  on  which  they  first  talked  across  to 
San  Francisco,  and  who  has  been  everything 
imaginable,  beginning  as  a  steeple-jack.  Also, 
Sergeant  Blood  and  a  lot  of  others,  and  Mr.  T.. 
whom  I  met  when  he  was  at  Harvard,  and  who 
is  one  of  the  nicest  people  imaginable,  doing  more 
for  the  men  unofficially  than  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  can 
do  officially. 

We  went  over  to  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  to  a  service. 
There  was  a  wonderful  chaplain,  and  the  best 
singing  I've  heard  for  a  long  time,  by  a  quartet. 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         125 

They  sang  the  "Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic" 
to  close  the  service,  and,  after  the  service,  songs 
of  all  kinds,  some  popular,  some  sentimental,  and 
some  lovely  part  songs.  The  man  who  took  the 
bass  had  the  strongest,  gentlest  kind  of  face,  and 
he  sang  something  about  home  that  he  said  always 
made  him  feel  homesick,  and  every  one  more  or 
less  wept,  and  felt  better  for  it.  Afterwards,  we 
sat  about  and  talked,  and  had  chocolate  and  sand- 
wiches. Mr.  T.  introduced  a  perfectly  killing 
sergeant  to  me,  who,  as  he  said,  is  "pure  gold." 
He  used  to  be  a  miner,  and  none  of  the  edges  are 
rubbed  off,  but  he  is  jolly,  and  wholesome,  and  most 
gentle  by  nature,  and  kiUingly  funny,  too.  He 
worked  out  West,  where  I  guess  he  met  Baron 
Munchausen,  and  beat  him  all  to  pieces  teUing 
yarns.  He  certainly  got  off  some  wonderful  ones 
last  night,  and  said  he'd  written  them  home  to 
his  girl  and  hoped  the  censor'd  let  them  through. 
It  surely  would  be  worth  a  censor's  while  to  read 
them  !  When  we  went  away  he  said,  "Well,  good- 
bye, if  I  don't  get  killed,  I  hope  we'll  meet  again." 

I  inclose  "Iodine  and  Pills,"  a  "trench  verse" 
they  are  fond  of  singing,  as  the  men  are  given 
those  two  remedies  for  most  of  their  ailments. 
They  go  up  to  the  trenches  singing  it,  and  I 
wonder  what  the  Germans  think!  They  think 
hardly  at  aU  about  the  Germans,  except  as  a 


126  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

menace  to  be  removed  from  the  opposite  trench. 
The  Germans  have  tried  a  lot  of  stunts  to  fool 
the  Americans,  but  haven't  succeeded  at  all,  as 
our  soldiers  seem  to  consider  No  Man's  Land 
as  belonging  to  the  Americans,  and  "  no  tres- 
passing" of  any  kind  is  allowed.  Our  soldiers 
don't  talk  much  about  the  French,  either.  They 
all  say  they're  here  to  get  things  done  as  fast  as 
they  can,  and  then  go  home.  None  of  them  want 
to  stay  a  minute  longer.  When  they  do  speak 
of  the  French,  it's  "that  poilu  with  the  cita- 
tions, "  or  "that  old  lady  who  dried  my  shoes,"  etc. 
These  are  answers  to  some  questions  that  we 
asked  them :  What  do  you  eat  ?  Flapjacks  for 
breakfast,  biscuits,  meat  balls,  butter,  fried  pota- 
toes, bacon,  coffee  ("Java"),  bread  ("punk"); 
"cup  in  one  hand,  mess  kit  in  the  other,  keep 
the  Hne  a-moving."  "Chow" — meals  or  food; 
chow  call  is  blown  on  a  bugle  behind  the  lines, 
but  the  proper  name  is  mess  call.  The  food 
comes  in  thermos  cans  at  the  front,  actually  into 
the  trenches,  so  they  get  it  hot.  Dinner  consists 
of  beans,  beef,  potatoes,  coffee,  blackberry  jam ; 
supper  of  hash,  "slum-stew,"  with  or  without  the 
jacket,  and  "camouflage-slum,"  stew  with  a 
crust  ("deep-sea  slum"  is  watery  stew  with 
boiled  potatoes),  doughnuts,  biscuits  and  butter 
and    sirup,    stewed    prunes,    stewed   figs,    apple 


OUR  SOLDIERS   ON   LEAVE         127 

fritters,  corn  fritters ;  not  all  that  at  one  meal, 
though.  When  you  work  for  supper  you  have 
three  big  sandwiches,  otherwise  you  have  a  good 
supper.  Where  do  you  sleep?  Sleep  in  a  dugout 
in  the  trenches,  otherwise  anywhere,  over,  under, 
or  among  cows.  Every  sleeping  place  is  marked 
with  its  inhabitants,  for  instance :  1  corporal, 
3  men,  2  cows,  6  chickens ;  4  horses,  40  men. 
Rillets  are  classified;  a  haymow  takes  from 
eighteen  to  twenty  men.  Sometimes  you  can 
fill  a  bag  with  straw  for  a  mattress  and  make 
a  bed  of  boxes  and  chickenwire.  How  do  you 
get  your  letters?  Letters  and  packages  are  de- 
livered to  you  right  where  you  are. 

IODINE  AND  PILLS 

Iodine  and  pills ! 

Iodine  and  pills ! 

Good  for  the  rheumatism, 

Good  for  the  chills ; 

Bones  may  be  broken, 

Mumps  in  your  gills, 

Iodine  and  pills  will  cure  you  — 

Iodine  and  pills. 

Chambery,  March  3,  1918. 

I  must  tell  you  more  about  our  soldiers.     We 
are  so  proud  of  their  behavior,  as  a  whole,  that 


128  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

we  don't  know  what  to  do.  Certainly  as  P.  S. 
put  it,  "life  is  stripped  of  all  its  fixings  "  over 
here,  and  the  wonderful  part  of  it  is  that  you 
find  so  many  more  beautiful  qualities  in  people 
than,  at  home,  you  would  think  they  could  have. 
These  men  have  had  no  leave  for  nine  months, 
and  have  had  their  baptism  of  fire,  too,  and  they 
seem  to  crave  to  talk  to  you  about  everything 
under  the  sun,  usually  about  home,  but  often 
about  the  War,  too.  The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  is  really 
homelike,  so  they  crowd  it,  and  talk  to  the  workers, 
or  just  sit  and  drink  in  the  atmosphere.  As  one 
of  them  expressed  it,  "You've  no  idea  what  it 
means  to  us  to  see  honest-to-God  American  women 
around."  One  of  them  told  Miss  Davison  that 
if  the  American  women  were  taken  away  from 
them,  they'd  shoot  themselves,  and  she  was  almost 
frightened  by  his  look.  I  don't  believe  you,  over 
there,  can  realize  the  state  of  mind  they  are  in  — 
they  are  very  alert  and  sensitive  in  every  fiber, 
so  that  the  slightest  thing  one  says  or  does  in- 
fluences them.  Of  course,  it's  a  strain  for  us,  as 
we  have  to  keep  them  interested  and  amused. 
Anything  at  all  emotional  is  too  much  for  them,  — 
and  we  have  to  be  calm.  For  instance,  the  day 
before  they  left,  the  quartet  sang  "My  Little 
Gray  Home  in  the  West "  very  beautifully. 
Nearly  every  man  was  almost  in  tears,  and  the 


OUR  SOLDIERS   ON   LEAVE         129 

quartet  had  to  sing  something  crazy  quickly,  to 
bring  back  their  balance  again.  Afterwards,  one 
of  the  men  remarked,  "We  can't  stand  much  of 
that,  you  know." 

Mr.  T.  introduced  a  little  man  with  red  hair 
to  me.  This  is  what  he  told  me  about  him : 
a  French  aeroplane  came  down  in  No  Man's 
Land,  in  broad  dayhght.  The  pilot  and  ob- 
server were  both  dazed,  and  made  for  the  German 
trenches.  Out  hops  the  Httle  red-haired  man  from 
ours,  dashes  across  No  Man's  Land,  turns  the 
observer  and  pilot  around,  and  leads  them  back  to 
our  trenches.  Then  he  goes  back  to  the  aero- 
plane, takes  out  all  the  photographs  and  plates, 
and  brings  them  back.  Meanwhile,  every  Ger- 
man sniper  is  firing  at  him,  and,  two  seconds 
after  he  left  the  aeroplane,  it  was  blown  to  smither- 
eens by  a  shell.  When  I  congratulated  him,  he 
blushed  crimson  and  said,  "Oh,  that  was  nothin', 
any  one  else  who'd  thought  of  it  would  have  done 
it,  you  know."  Then  he  hastily  changed  the  con- 
versation to  gas  masks,  and  we  chatted  gaily  for 
a  while.  Afterwards  he  came  up  to  say  "Good- 
bye" and  said,  "That  was  the  nicest  conversa- 
tion I've  had,  since  we've  been  in  France.  I 
haven't  had  the  pleasure  of  talking  with  an 
American  lady  before." 

While  I  was  taking  a  photograph  of  a  group  of 


130  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

soldiers,  a  boy,  who  was  standing  watching, 
looked  as  if  he  wanted  his  picture  taken,  too.  I 
found  he  wanted  to  send  it  to  his  guardian. 
"She's  an  old  lady,  you  know,"  he  said,  "and 
if  you  take  me  up  against  a  house,  she'll  think 
I'm  in  a  city,  and  not  get  worried  so  much." 

Another  little  boy,  with  a  southern  accent, 
told  me  that  he  knew  how  to  speak  French,  — 
he  could  say,  "Oui-oui."  When  he  got  to  the 
hotel,  he  had  a  trench  cough,  and  the  landlady, 
being  a  motherly  soul,  asked  him  something.  He 
said  "Oui-oui,"  cheerfully,  and,  before  he  knew 
it,  he  was  whopped  into  bed  with  a  huge  mustard 
plaster  clapped  on  his  chest,  and,  in  that  helpless 
state,  made  to  drink  something  hot  that  tasted 
"  something  awful,"  before  the  zealous  landlady 
sent  for  the  American  doctor.  Another  boy 
fell  desperately  in  love  with  a  French  girl,  and 
wanted  to  marry  her  before  going  back  to  the 
front.  He  went  to  see  the  Provost  Marshal, 
the  Colonel,  the  Prefet,  and,  in  fact,  all  the  authori- 
ties about  it.  The  French  girl  was  a  bit  amazed 
at  such  headlong  American  methods.  Her  mother 
objected  of  course,  and,  as  neither  of  them  spoke 
a  word  of  English,  nor  he  a  word  of  French,  they 
came  to  Monsieur  Lugon  to  beg  him  to  interpret 
for  them,  and  explain  that  the  girl  wished  to  wait 
until  after  the  war. 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON  LEAVE         131 

An  old  sergeant,  who  has  been  in  the  Army 
twenty-seven  years,  said  he  bet  his  wife  that  the 
war  would  be  over  by  Christmas  of  last  year : 
"Of  course  I  didn't  believe  it,"  said  he,  "but  it 
makes  a  subject  for  conversation  with  her." 

We  went  to  see  them  off  at  the  station  when  the 
troop  train  came  to  take  them  away,  and  we  rode 
with  them  as  far  as  Aix.  I  can't  tell  you  what  it 
was  like  to  see  them  go  away.  We  shook  hands 
with  all,  and  stood  and  waved  good-byes  to  them, 
and  they  all  waved  caps  and  handkerchiefs  out 
of  the  windows,  and  called  as  they  passed  us, 
"Look  at  me,  Miss  Davison;  wave  to  me,  Mrs. 
Lee;  Miss  Bradley,  Good-bye!"  and  away  the 
train  went.  We  could  see  them  waving  as  long 
as  it  was  in  sight. 

Chambery,  March  10. 

This  week  we  went  to  a  place  where  there  had 
been  a  railway  accident,  not  a  very  bad  one, 
but  to  English  troops.  Mrs.  Lee  thought  that 
they  might  need  things,  and  also  that  there  might 
be  no  one  there  who  could  speak  English,  so  we 
filled  up  Maggie  with  all  kinds  of  bandages, 
and  went.  We  had  difficulties  getting  there,  as 
the  snow  got  deeper  and  deeper  as  we  climbed, 
and  if  we  had  met  something  it  would  have  been 
impossible  to  pass  it.    We  did  come  upon  a  car, 


132  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

and  had  a  wretched  time  creeping  slowly  behind  it 
for  miles,  until,  eventually,  we  got  to  a  bridge  where 
there  was  space  to  pass. 

When  we  got  to  the  town  nearest  the  accident, 
it  was  swarming  with  Tommies,  such  nice  looking 
ones,  too.  We  didn't  get  to  the  hospital  until 
eight  at  night,  and,  sure  enough,  there  was  only 
one  nurse  and  she  spoke  no  English.  We  asked 
if  we  might  see  the  men,  but  when  we  went  into 
the  wards,  they  were  nearly  all  asleep,  or  rather 
trying  to  sleep,  after  the  accident.  I  never  saw 
such  grit  as  they  have.  Imagine  being  shut  in 
a  box  car  that  has  fallen  off  an  embankment,  and 
unable  to  get  out,  with  eight  horses  kicking  around 
you.  When  they  heard  Enghsh  spoken,  they 
nearly  all  opened  their  eyes  and  smiled  at  us. 
Some  of  them  weren't  really  very  badly  hurt, 
but  much  shaken  up.  We  gave  them  some  to- 
bacco and  the  never-to-be-forgotten  comfort  bags. 
One  boy,  the  worst  hurt,  was  in  a  room  by  him- 
seK  and  only  half  conscious.  When  Mrs.  Lee 
went  up  to  him  and  said  a  few  words  in  English, 
he  smiled,  and  opened  his  one  openable  eye,  and 
said  cheerfully,  "Oh,  I'm  quite  all  right,  thanks 
very  much."  He  wasn't,  at  all,  poor  dear,  be- 
cause he  had  bad  internal  injuries,  too. 

Most  of  them  were  excited  and  glad  to  talk. 
One  man  who  had  the  Mons  Star  and  had  never 


n 


m. 
P 


I   I 


Belgian  Tuberculosis  Hospital  at  Chambery 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON  LEAVE         133 

been  wounded  before,  grinned  and  said,  "We 
was  just  lucky  enough,  yes  Ma'am."  He  had  a 
bandage  around  his  head,  a  broken  arm,  rib,  and 
ankle. 

Mrs.  Lee  arranged  with  the  nurse  to  write  home 
to  their  families,  and  then  we  left  them,  because 
they  mustn't  be  excited.  It  was  good  to  see  the 
restful  expression  that  came  over  their  faces, 
when  they  shut  their  eyes  to  go  to  sleep  again, 
after  they'd  been  speaking  English  a  little. 

I  am  sending  you  a  picture  of  the  Belgians 
outside  the  tuberculosis  hospital  here.  The  Httle 
boy  on  crutches,  in  the  foreground,  is  the  one  who 
had  his  leg  cut  off,  and  was  singing  in  his  bed,  the 
day  we  gave  the  bag  to  the  German  prisoner. 

Chambery,  March  22,  1918. 

We  have  changed  our  depot  here  to  a  room  in 
the  chateau  of  the  Dukes  of  Savoy.  It  is  most 
romantic,  as  the  room  is  in  the  old  part  of  the 
chateau,  directly  over  the  portcullis,  and  the  walls 
are  about  six  feet  thick.  The  view  from  it  is 
magnificent,  out  towards  the  Alps  and  across  the 
basin  where  Chambery  is.  Imagine  the  bandages 
and  pillows  you  so  carefully  make  at  home,  on 
shelves  in  a  thirteenth  century  castle.  They 
don't  stay  there  long,  however,  as  we  take  them 
to  the  hospitals  almost  as  soon  as  we  get  them. 


134  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

Chambery,  March  26,  1918. 

The  war  news  to-day  seems  as  black  as  it  can 
be,  unless  it  gets  blacker  to-morrow.  People  stand 
in  crowds  where  the  communiques  are  posted, 
almost  breathless.  There  is  a  feehng  that  this 
is  the  great  battle  of  the  War,  as  a  deciding  factor 
in  its  outcome.  The  Germans  cannot  win,  — 
stiU  they  continue  to  advance,  and  we  were  pre- 
pared as  much  as  possible. 

Last  night  the United   States  Engineers, 

who  were  on  leave  here,  were  summoned  back  to 
their  regiments  after  only  two  days'  leave.  They 
left,  singing,  and  the  whole  town  turned  out  to  see 
them  off. 

To-day,  the  allied  communiques  state  that 
Bapaume  has  fallen,  and  Noyon  is  being  evacu- 
ated. All  kinds  of  rumors  circulate  as  to  new 
kinds  of  gas  shells  used  by  the  Germans,  and 
that,  with  the  fact  that  Paris  is  being  shelled, 
adds  to  the  anxiety  of  the  hour. 

Chambery,  Easter,  March  31. 

Since  I  last  wrote,  we  have  been  on  a  trip  to 
visit  hospitals  in  two  lonely  and  remote  places. 
They  have  no  comforts  at  all,  but  they  are  not 
badly  ofiP,  as  they  have  at  present  very  few  sick 
and  wounded,  so  the  patients  get  good  care. 
Probably,  a  year  ago,  I  should  have  been  horrified 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         135 

at  their  desolateness,  but  now  that  I  see  them 
clean,  and  the  men  well  cared  for,  as  far  as  bare 
essentials  go,  I  say  they  aren't  badly  off. 

The  weather  has  been  perfect,  and  now  the 
cherry  trees  are  all  out,  and  the  violets  and  prim- 
roses are  in  masses  everywhere,  not  to  speak  of 
periwinkles  hke  Httle  blue  stars. 

I  have  a  very  amusing  letter  from  Phil,  in  which 
he  describes  a  football  game,  for  all  the  world 
like  the  game  of  croquet  in  "Ahce"  ;  only  instead 
of  the  Duchess  yelHng  ''Off  with  her  head,"  Ger- 
man shells  kept  landing  all  around,  until  they 
found  themselves  lined  up  against  nobody,  as 
the  opposing  side  had  taken  to  shelter,  and  had 
disappeared  like  Ahce's  wickets. 

If  you  want  to  "see  America,"  I've  decided  that 
the  best  way  is  to  come  to  France,  for  you  certainly 
see  men  from  all  parts,  fresh  from  home,  and 
untainted  to  an  extraordinary  degree  by  any 
outside  influences.  Though  they  are  wonder- 
fully quick  to  register  impressions,  and  to  im- 
prove their  shining  hom-s  by  taking  in  all  the 
French  can  show  them,  yet  they  remain  abso- 
lutely frankly  American,  and  don't  try  to  be  any- 
thing else.  Considering  that  they  are  of  all 
kinds,  that  is  really  wonderful,  and  gives  you  great 
faith  in  America  as  a  nation.  They  do  take  sug- 
gestions from  others  in  matters  that  are  prac- 


1S6  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

tical,  but  they  have  faith  only  in  American 
things,  and  leave  the  foreigner  to  his  own 
ways  mostly. 

One  American,  who  was  here  (I  didn't  see  him, 
but  Miss  Davison  told  me  about  him),  was  taken 
prisoner  by  the  Germans  and  escaped.  Ten  of 
them  were  captured.  The  Germans  took  them 
back  of  the  lines  bhndfolded,  and  tortured  them, 
in  the  hope  that  they  would  answer  questions  about 
transports,  etc.  Miss  Davison  said  she  didn't 
dare  ask  what  was  done  to  them,  but  one  thing 
was  to  burn  them.  The  man  she  saw  was  taken 
prisoner  in  January,  and  he  still  had  an  un- 
healed ring  of  raw  flesh  around  his  wrist,  from 
being  burned  by  mustard  gas. 

After  the  Germans  had  finished  torturing  them, 
they  were  put  in  the  end  of  some  barracks,  with 
one  guard  over  them.  Their  arms  were  taken 
away,  of  course,  but  their  tobacco  and  matches 
were  left  them.  At  one  end  of  the  room  they 
were  in,  was  a  huge  pile  of  packing  and  excelsior. 
They  decided  to  escape  at  once,  so  they  calmly 
planned  it  in  English,  while  the  guard  stood  by, 
not  understanding  them.  One  of  them  got 
behind  a  post ;  another  set  fire  to  the  excelsior. 
The  guard  started  to  put  the  fire  out.  They 
grabbed  his  gun,  dispatched  him,  and,  in  the  con- 
fusion, escaped.     Soon  they  came  to  an  outpost, 


OUR  SOLDIERS   ON   LEAVE         137 

they  also  got  this  guard's  gun  and  ammunition ; 
five  of  them  had  disappeared  by  then,  and,  they 
think,  were  killed. 

Then  they  started  to  walk  to  the  front  and 
France.  What  their  adventures  were,  I  don't 
know.  They  traveled  at  night,  and  guided 
themselves  by  the  stars,  one  of  them  being  a 
Westerner  and  used  to  it.  At  last,  they  were  all 
so  tired  they  couldn't  go  any  farther.  A  French- 
man came  up  to  them,  took  them  in,  and  gave 
them  food  and  a  rest,  and  told  them  where  the 
American  lines  were.  They  were  in  Alsace. 
Somehow  they  got  through  Switzerland,  and 
back  to  the  Americans.  Never  again,  they  say, 
will  they  be  taken  prisoners. 

I  am  so  glad,  H.,  that  you  like  the  hospital 
work.  You  are  doing  better  than  I  am,  as  dur- 
ing the  two  operations  that  I  saw,  I  had  to  go  out 
about  eight  times. 

Every  day,  I  want  more  to  get  back  home 
(how  I  hate  this  chaotic  mix  up !)  and  I  should 
take  the  first  boat  if  there  were  any  real  reason 
for  going,  but  somehow  one  can't  leave  here 
when  there  is  so  much  to  do,  and  one  is  really 
needed. 

I  often  wonder  what  we'll  all  do  after  the  war  — 
to  sit  down  in  the  same  old  rut  will  be  impossible  ; 
but,  as  S.  says,  there's  always  a  vista  ahead,  and, 


138  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

when  we  come  home  and  get  off  at  the  docks, 
I  imagine  there'll  be  one  waiting  behind  the  Statue 
of  Liberty,  leading  on  to  the  Promised  Land. 

Chambery,  April  6,  1918. 

We  have  been  fearfully  busy  distributing  bags 
in  the  hospitals  for  the  Easter  fetes.  I  think 
in  four  days,  we  must  have  distributed  about 
seven  hundred  bags,  besides  visiting  all  the 
hospitals  in  Aix  and  Chambery  twice,  to  know 
the  exact  number  of  soldiers  to  give  bags  to. 
The  men  are  pouring  in,  some  every  day,  and  the 
hospitals  are  fiUing  up.  They  send  here  mostly 
men  with  small  wounds,  or  sick  men  —  a  great 
many  seem  to  be  suffering  from  rheumatism  and 
indigestion,  I  suppose  as  a  result  of  the  winter. 
The  Verdun-Nancy  Sector  send  their  people  here. 
That  is  interesting,  as  they  are  the  French  who  have 
been  with  the  Americans.  I  asked  one  man  who 
had  been  with  our  artillery,  if  it  was  good,  and 
he  said,  "tres  bon,"  but  that  they  didn't  yet  real- 
ize all  that  war  was,  and  needed  seasoned  men 
with  them.  I  wish  I  hadn't  told  him  I  was 
American  when  I  asked  him,  as  he  might  have 
said  more.  Quite  often  they  take  me  for  French, 
especially  when  they  come  from  the  provinces 
and  speak  with  an  accent  themselves. 

Of  course,  with  the  offensive  on,  we  have  no 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         139 

Americans  here  on  leave  now,  and  probably  shall 
not  have  until  it  is  over. 

The  weather  here  is  perfect,  and  as  for  the 
country !  I  have  never  seen  so  many  kinds  of 
flowers  in  my  life.  Every  kind  of  fruit  tree  and 
hawthorn  is  in  bloom,  and  the  meadows  are 
carpeted  like  tapestry  with  jonquils,  primroses, 
cowslips,  buttercups,  p^querettes,  violets,  and 
anemones,  besides  many  other  flowers,  the  names 
of  which  I  do  not  know.  I  also  heard  a  nightin- 
gale the  other  day.  I  never  have  seen  such  a 
beautiful  spring. 

One  of  the  boys,  who  came  down  from  Noyon, 
said  that  all  the  old  trenches  there  were  nearly 
obliterated  with  flowers  of  every  kind,  growing 
wild,  but  now,  just  about  a  week  later,  they 
are  being  used  again  for  war ! 

There  is  a  very  nice  Httle  old  lady,  a  teacher  of 
English  in  the  schools  here,  who  loves  walking, 
and  every  time  I  get  a  chance  I  go  with  her. 
She  knows  the  most  heavenly  walks,  up  httle 
grassy  lanes  in  the  mountains.  On  our  way 
home  the  other  day,  we  saw  an  old  woman  and  a 
httle  boy  ploughing  a  field.  Hitched  to  the  plow 
were  two  cows.  I  wish  I  could  have  had  a  pic- 
ture of  them.  It  is  typical  of  how  the  labor  on 
the  soil  is  now  done  in  this  region,  on  the  httle 
patchwork  fields. 


140  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

P.S.  Mrs.  Baker  got  a  loaf  of  white  bread 
from  the  United  States  Army,  as  a  present,  the 
other  day.  It  tasted  just  as  cake  would  have  at 
home. 

Chambery,  April  14,  1918. 

Still  the  battle  continues,  and  we  all  hold  our 
breath  and  wait.  A  wounded  French  corporal, 
who  came  here  the  other  day,  said  that  the  Eng- 
hsh  were  fighting  like  demons,  and  keeping  the 
morale  and  coiu'age  of  the  French  at  top  pitch 
by  their  wonderful  example,  the  example  of 
every  man  among  them.  We  sit  and  wonder, 
and  hear  of  Paris  being  bombed  and  shelled. 

No  men  arrive  on  leave,  nor  will  arrive  for 
some  weeks,  and,  when  they  do,  they  will  have 
learned  what  war  is.  Wounded  are  coming  in 
slowly  now,  —  but  coming. 

The  regiment,  that  belongs  in  this  neighbor- 
hood in  peace  times,  has  been  practically  wiped 
out,  this  last  week.  The  Colonel,  Commandant, 
and  staff  were  in  a  chateau,  watching  operations. 
Things  were  very  critical,  when  suddenly  they 
saw  English  reenforcements  coming.  The  Eng- 
hsh  reached  the  chateau,  suddenly  turned,  and 
began  firing  on  their  allies  !  They  were  Germans, 
dressed  as  English !  The  Colonel  was  killed,  the 
Commandant  taken  prisoner,  and,  though  they 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         141 

made  the  Germans  pay  dearly  for  their  httle 
ruse,  they  were  nearly  all  killed  before  communi- 
cations were  reestablished. 

I  have  come  to  know  a  good  many  people  here 
now.  They  are  extremely  nice,  and  lately,  as 
work  has  been  slack,  on  account  of  the  impossi- 
bihty  of  getting  supphes  from  Paris,  I  have  had 
time  to  take  tea  and  to  walk  with  some  of  them. 
It  is  pleasant  to  see  something  of  the  outside 
world,  and  helps,  I  hope,  besides,  in  spreading 
good  feeling  between  the  Americans  and  the 
French. 

One  of  the  officers,  who  has  been  in  several 
places,  says  that  the  feehng  towards  the  Ameri- 
cans is  warmer  in  Chambery  than  anywhere  else 
he  has  been.  I  can't  help  thinking  that  it  is 
partly  due  to  the  fact  that  the  A.  F.  F.  W.  came 
here  winter  before  last,  before  America  was  in 
the  War.  It  is  important,  of  course,  to  keep  up 
the  feehng,  and  it  is  certainly  very  agreeable. 

The  other  day,  the  head  of  the  United  States 
Medical  Department  here  came  to  lunch  with  us. 
He  came  to  France  a  year  ago,  and  as  the  British 
were  short  of  medical  officers,  he  served  with  them, 
and  was  gassed  twice. 

I  now  see  why  there  are  such  terrible  losses  in 
the  medical  units.  The  young  doctors  go  over 
the  top,  just  behind  the  men  who  are  charging. 


142  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

This  doctor  said  he  went  over  three  times  in  one 
day,  and  each  time  he  took  one  third  of  his 
stretcher  bearers  with  him.  He  worked  for  three 
days  before  he  was  able  to  assemble  his  men, 
and  have  roll  call.  Then,  out  of  five  hundred 
stretcher  bearers,  only  one  hundred  and  fifty 
answered.  He  says,  that  though  they  are 
unarmed  and  wear  a  Red  Cross  arm  band, 
they  are  shot  at  by  snipers,  when  dressing  the 
wounded. 

He  told  us  that  once  he  had  been  attending 
to  six  badly  wounded  men  in  a  shell  hole,  and  he 
started  to  come  out  to  go  to  another  hole  where 
he  heard  some  others  calling  for  help,  but  he  was 
immediately  shot  at.  He  couldn't  believe  it, 
and  put  his  hat  up  on  the  end  of  a  bayonet,  to 
see  which  direction  the  shots  were  coming  from. 
Then  he  got  out  again,  in  such  a  way  that  his  arm 
band  would  be  plainly  seen  at  the  place  from  which 
the  shots  came.  They  shot  again.  Then  he 
took  off  his  arm  band,  borrowed  a  Tommy's 
rifle,  and,  while  one  of  the  Tommies  moved  a 
helmet  on  a  bayonet,  he  crawled  around  behind 
the  sniper  and  "winged  him."  He  then  went 
over  and  dressed  the  sniper's  wound,  and  took 
his  arm  band  out  of  his  pocket,  waving  it  in  the 
Roche's  face.  The  Roche  merely  shook  his  head, 
raised  his  eyebrows,  and  said  "  Ya,  Ya." 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         143 

Chambery,  Savoie,  April  21st,  1918. 

Yesterday,  we  went  to  see  a  family  of  refugees, 
and  took  them  clothes  and  refugee  bags.  The 
family  consisted  of  a  mother  and  six  children, 
the  oldest  an  undersized  boy  of  thirteen.  It  was 
pathetic  to  see  their  joy  over  the  toys  in  the  bags, 
as,  of  course,  they  had  had  nothing  like  that  since 
the  War  began.  The  oldest  little  girl  of  eleven 
was  proud,  too,  of  the  clothes  we  brought  them, 
and  began  at  once  to  plan  how  they  could  be 
made  over.  In  their  entire  little  house,  they  had 
one  chair,  two  benches,  a  table,  a  stove,  two 
glasses,  three  cups,  a  few  plates  and  spoons.  We 
did  not  see  the  back  room  where  they  slept.  The 
children  and  the  house  were  all  scrupulously  clean. 
The  mother  and  Little  boy  and  oldest  girl  worked  in 
the  fields,  and  the  younger  children  went  to  school. 

When  we  asked  them  whether  they  found  food 
available  there,  they  said  that  their  neighbors 
were  very  good  to  them  and  brought  them  pota- 
toes, etc.     The  neighbors  are  as  poor  as  they  are. 

We  go  often  to  see  refugee  families,  and  Miss 
Wells,  of  the  Red  Cross,  who  is  here  looking  after 
the  refugees  in  Isere  and  Savoie,  and  who  is  very 
efficient  and  very  nice,  has  promised  us  shoes  and 
beds  for  them.  We  are  doing  the  clothing  part 
and  are  cooperating  with  the  Red  Cross  prac- 
tically, as  well  as  theoretically,  here. 


144  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

If  the  refugees  can,  they  pay  for  the  beds  and 
furniture  on  the  installment  plan,  for  giving  the 
things  outright  tends  to  make  them  sit  back,  and 
look  on  their  lives  as  irreparably  broken. 

It  seems  almost  inconceivable,  when  we  drive 
into  the  lovehest  Httle  villages,  to  find  the  most 
abject  misery.  In  one  town  we  found  a  little 
boy  with  whooping  cough,  so  they  said,  and  a 
very  bad  throat.  Mrs.  Baker  went  to  the  Pre- 
fecture and  got  them  to  send  a  doctor  at  once, 
but  the  next  time  we  went,  we  heard  that  he  had 
died  of  diphtheria.  The  woman  who  looked  after 
the  family,  until  the  father  arrived,  as  the  mother 
was  grief-stricken  is  a  perfect  wonder.  Un- 
educated, and  dirty  to  a  degree,  —  but  she  had 
no  soap,  —  she  took  care  of  her  own  three  small 
children,  two  belonging  to  the  woman  whose 
child  had  diphtheria,  and  another  family,  consist- 
ing of  a  mother  with  a  new-born  baby,  and  six 
children.  All  are  refugees.  She  looks  very  thin 
and  tired,  but  now  it  will  not  be  so  hard  for  her. 
She  said  she  found  it  hard  to  ask  for  things,  — 
but  she  had  no  needle  and  thread  to  mend  with,  — 
could  we  bring  her  some?  The  children  under 
four  didn't  know  what  sugar  was.  They  look 
healthy  but  nearly  all  have  something  the  matter, 
either  skin-disease,  or  swollen  glands,  or  ear 
trouble. 


OUR  SOLDIERS   ON   LEAVE         145 

The  Red  Cross  has  now  made  us  part  of  their 
Casualty  Bureau,  to  look  up  U.  S.  soldiers  who 
have  somehow  got  lost,  and  are  "missing." 
Sometimes  they  have  been  wounded  with  the 
French,  and  have  been  put  in  a  French  hospital ; 
sometimes,  perhaps,  they  haven't  written  home, 
and  their  famihes  are  making  inquiries,  or  sometimes 
they  may  have  written,  but  their  letters  have 
been  censored  out,  as  our  censor  is  very  strict. 
We  keep  getting  notices  asking  us  to  look  up 
U.  S.  soldiers  who  are  "missing,"  but  we  have 
found  only  one  American  in  a  hospital  here,  and 
he  has  rheumatism,  and  isn't  lost. 

Lady  Baird  is  back  here  again  working  for  the 
Belgians,  and  has  a  nurse  to  work  under  her. 
She  is  also  starting  social  work  for  the  men, 
through  some  ladies  who  are  coming  especially 
for  that  purpose.  They  are  to  live  together  near 
the  hospital,  and  devote  all  their  time  to  working 
for  the  men. 

Madame  R.  and  I  went  there  this  afternoon 
in  the  rain,  and  gave  the  men  oranges,  and  some 
other  things  we  bought  for  them.  They  were 
pathetically  grateful,  and  above  all  eager  to  be 
talked  to.  Some  of  the  new  ones,  boys  of  twenty 
and  twenty-two,  speak  English  and  have  lived 
in  England,  and  after  being  wounded  have  been 
nursed  in  English  hospitals.     Imagine  the  con- 


146  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

trast!  One  boy  of  twenty  said  he  had  been 
"reforme"  on  account  of  wounds,  but  had  asked 
to  go  back  to  fight.  He  was  then  taken  prisoner, 
and  is  now  back,  exchanged,  and  dying  up  here 
of  tuberculosis. 

The  battle  of  Picardy,  up  north,  continues 
with  no  decision,  and  no  slackening  of  anxiety. 

Chambery,  Savoie,  May  5,  1918. 

Letters  certainly  do  make  the  most  tremendous 
difference  to  one  over  here,  especially  letters 
from  home.  I  was  in  the  most  terrific  gloom 
and  couldn't  imagine  exactly  why,  —  then  to- 
day, I  came  downstairs  and  found  the  B  letter 
box  full  of  letters  with  U.  S.  postage  stamps 
on  them ;  —  it  had  been  empty  for  nearly  four 
solid  weeks.  I  had  heard,  too,  that  cables  had 
been  stopped ;  of  course  it  was  probably  only  a 
rumor,  but  one  couldn't  help  wondering  what 
under  the  sun  was  happening,  and  feeling  rather 
like  a  detached  and  dark  meteor,  sailing  through 
space.  You  can't  imagine  how  jubilant  I've 
been  feeling,  ever  since  I  got  those  letters. 

The  Liberty  Loan  parade  must  have  been  quite 
impressive.  A  tank  going  down  Commonwealth 
Avenue !  It  does  seem  as  if  the  earth  was  really 
turned  inside  out. 

Oh,  I  am  so  utterly  sick  from  the  War!    It  is 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         147 

a  rotten  business  from  beginning  to  end.  One 
has  to  think:  "one  little  ray  of  pure  white  Hght 
is  worth  a  boundless  space  of  darkness,"  but  the 
darkness  is  so  black  just  now  that  many  people 
have  forgotten  that  the  light  exists,  and  so  there 
is  misery,  and  wickedness,  and  hopelessness  at 
every  hand  —  until  the  most  unexpected  moments 
sometimes.  Then  one  sees  the  hght,  quite  like 
the  Holy  Grail  journeying  through  the  world 
in  King  Arthur's  time.  It  appears  unexpectedly, 
and  vanishes,  but  you  know  it  has  been  there. 
But  enough  of  that. 

This  week  we  have  been  most  frightfully  busy. 
We  went  to  a  school  where  reformes  are  learning 
new  trades.  Every  man  there  had  either  a  hand 
or  a  foot  or  two  missing,  yet  there  they  were, 
cheerful  as  could  be,  learning  to  be  shoemakers, 
tailors,  to  make  baskets,  and  learning  to  write 
agaiin.  The  most  cheerful  man  in  the  whole 
place  was  one  in  a  roller  chair,  with  both  legs  off 
at  the  knees.  He  was  learning  to  be  a  cobbler, 
and  was  whistling  a  merry  tune  when  we  came 
in.  We  gave  each  one  a  sac-surprise,  and  a  shirt 
from  "I'Amerique,"  and  they  were  overjoyed,  es- 
pecially with  the  sacs,  which  are  always  an  un- 
alloyed pleasure.  We  tell  them  that  the  sacs 
come  straight  to  them  from  some  one  in  America, 
and  they  are  dehghted  beyond  words,   and  so 


148  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

disappointed  if  there  isn't  a  letter  in  the  bag  from 
some  one  whom  they  may  thank.  The  funniest 
things  sometimes  make  them  the  happiest.  T  ^ 
other  day,  when  we  gave  out  the  sacs,  I  heaiu  u 
joyous  "Oh,  que  je  suis  heureux!"  from  behind 
me,  and  there  was  a  poilu  with  a  httle  wooden 
duck  on  wheels,  that  opened  and  shut  his  mouth 
with  a  clack  when  he  rolled.  Now  that  poilu 
may  be  seen  in  Aix,  walking  slowly  down  the  street 
on  his  crutches,  and  behind  him,  so  good  and 
faithful,  the  Kttle  duck  on  a  string,  clacking  along, 
truly  conversational  and  companionable —  most 
comforting  and  sympathetic  to  the  Httle  poilu. 
We  also  went  this  week,  to  see  a  hospital  with 
nothing  but  old  people,  refugees,  in  it.  I  almost 
couldn't  bear  it.  Some  of  them  were  quite  out 
of  their  heads,  and  others  were  childish,  and  all 
so  old.  They  all  came  from  the  invaded  dis- 
tricts, and,  even  when  the  War  is  over,  they  never 
can  go  back,  yet  in  some  of  them  there  is  still 
the  desire  to  go  home,  —  to  a  home  that  does  not 
exist.  Some  of  them  have  been  well  off  too, 
and  now  they  are  propped  up  in  beds  in  long 
lines,  immaculately  clean,  —  some  with  sorrow 
stamped  on  their  faces,  some  with  gentleness 
and  kindness,  and  others  with  worldliness  and 
meanness, — all  together,  to  stay  probably  until 
they  die.     Some  can  go  out  and  sit  in  the  sun,  and 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE        149 

gossip  and  knit,  but  most  are  too  rheumatic. 
Poor  old  souls !  The  place  they  are  in  has  the 
romantic  name,  —  Pont  de  Beauvoisin.  I 
wondei-  how  the  name  came,  don't  you  ? 

Another  day  we  took  some  furniture  up  into 
the  back  country,  to  some  refugees.  We  had 
four  chairs  hooked  over  the  hood  of  the  Ford, 
one  chair  out  over  the  side,  held  on  by  Mrs. 
Baker,  and  behind,  Maggie  was  bulging  with  two 
beds,  two  mattresses,  and  pillows.  As  you  can 
imagine,  every  one  stared  at  us,  and  probably 
thought  us  crazy.  Naturally,  we  met  a  hay- 
cart  on  a  narrow  road.  It  betook  itself  to  the 
field,  with  much  "  Ugh-aaa  "-ing  by  the  drivers 
to  the  oxen,  and  we  got  by  with  triumph. 

Coming  home  from  Aix  one  evening,  we  were 
stopped  at  the  crossroads  by  a  woman.  She  told 
us  that  one  of  the  refugee  women  at  Viviers 
was  ill,  and  could  we  get  a  doctor  at  once,  as  she 
seemed  in  a  very  bad  state.  We  therefore  hurried 
back  to  Chambeiyr,  and  Mrs.  Baker  telephoned 
to  most  of  the  doctors  in  town,  and  eventually 
got  one.  I  then  started  out  with  him,  and  some 
blankets,  and  an  American  Ambulance  man,  Mr. 
Ware,  to  get  the  woman  and  bring  her  to  the 
hospital  if  need  be.  You  have  no  idea  what  a 
lovely  drive  it  was  in  the  moonlight,  with  the 
nightingales  singing  around  us,  and  the  feathery 


150  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

white  onion  blossoms,  like  ghosts  of  flowers, 
dim,  under  the  trees  by  the  roadside.  Truth 
forces  me  to  add  that  they  smelt  of  onions,  too ! 
At  last  we  came  to  the  lake,  quiet  in  the  moon- 
light under  the  mountains,  and  went  slowly 
through  the  tiny  village,  where  the  warm  candle 
light  was  streaming  out  of  the  windows  of  the 
houses. 

When  we  came  to  the  house,  the  doctor  went 
up  to  see  the  woman,  while  Mr.  Ware  and  I  waited 
to  see  what  his  verdict  would  be,  and  there,  in  the 
peaceful  moonlight,  one  of  the  neighbors  told  us 
the  refugee  woman's  story. 

She  and  her  little  girls  had  escaped  from  St. 
Michel  (Aisne),  after  being  under  the  Germans 
for  three  years.  Her  husband  and  son  of  seven- 
teen had  been  kept  there  to  work.  "  She  has  been 
through  everything,  —  everything,  the  poor 
woman,  and  she  has  nothing.  But  she  is  proud ; 
she  is  ashamed  to  tell  us  that  she  is  hungry,  she 
would  rather  go  without.  But  we  know  what 
it  is  to  be  in  need,  and  we  give  her  from  what  we 
have  ourselves,  and  she  has  to  take  it  for  the 
children,  —  but  for  herseK,  never  anything.  She 
cries  when  she  thanks  us,  but  we  understand,  and 
we  give  as  much  as  possible,  a  little  at  a  time,  so 
that  she  won't  find  it  out.  She  would  do  the 
same  thing  for  us,  —  que  voulez-vous  .^ " 


OUR  SOLDIERS   ON   LEAVE         151 

Then  she  went  on  to  tell  us  about  the  woman's 
Ufe  under  the  Germans.  She  was  put  in  prison. 
I  asked  what  for.  "Because  she  tried  to  get 
some  milk  for  her  children."  Then,  because  she 
refused  to  work,  they  beat  her  until  her  leg  be- 
came all  black,  and  she  was  very  ill  in  prison. 
But  there  was  a  Boche  doctor  who  was  good. 
He  came  at  night  *'in  secret,"  and  cared  for  her 
and  her  children,  brought  them  food  and  a  bottle 
of  iodine  that  cost  eight  francs!  —  a  tiny  bottle. 
If  he  had  been  caught,  he  would  have  been  pun- 
ished too.  Eventually,  she  was  evacuated  and 
came  here,  "  but  she  has  lost  all  her  strength." 

When  the  doctor  came  downstairs,  he  said  that 
she  was  too  ill  to  be  moved  just  then,  but,  in  a 
day  or  two,  we  are  going  to  take  her  to  the  hospital. 
Yesterday,  she  was  much  better.  The  neighbors 
take  care  of  her  and  the  children,  and  see  that  the 
children  get  to  school.  The  oldest  girl  is  nine 
years  old  and  just  learning  her  letters.  She  was 
five  when  the  War  started,  but,  in  the  *' invaded 
country,"  she  wasn't  allowed  to  go  to  school. 

Did  I  tell  you  that  we  have  four  American  boys 
to  help  us  lift  cases  and  do  heavy  work?  They 
say  "Oui"  to  every  outburst  on  the  part  of  the 
French  with  whom  they  come  in  contact.  The 
other  day  we  were  taking  mattresses  down  from 
an  attic,  to  be  made  over.     The  woman  who 


152  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

showed  them  to  us  was  thrilled  to  have  American 
soldiers  heave  things  about.  She  was  about 
sixty  and  had  a  red  wig. 

Says  she :  "  Que  Monsieur  est  fort !" 

"Oui." 

"  Combien  de  matelas,  Monsieur  peut-il  porter 
a  la  fois.^^" 

"Oui." 

"Monsieur  comprend  le  FranQais?" 

"Oui." 

"  C'est  ga,  venez  avec  moi  chercher  les  matelas." 

"Oui."     Stands  firmly  rooted. 

"Mais,  Monsieur,  venez  avec  moi !" 

"  Oui,  —  say,  Miss  Bradley,  she's  getting  excited 
about  something,  you'd  better  come  here."  Ex- 
planation. 

"Ah !  Monsieur  ne  comprend  pas  le  Frangais !" 

"Oui." 

Heave!  plunk!  comes  a  mattress  out  of  the 
window  from  two  stories  up,  which  completely 
shatters  the  nerves  of  all  the  surrounding  hens 
and  chickens,  as  well  as  of  the  lady  of  the  red  wig. 

A  French  soldier  was  here  the  other  night  wear- 
ing a  most  wonderful  decoration.  One  of  the 
U.  S.  soldiers  wanted  to  know  what  it  was,  so 
he  tapped  a  little  white-haired  man,  who  was 
standing  by,  on  the  shoulder  and  said :  "  Say, 
can  you  please  tell  me  just  what  decoration  that 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         153 

feller  has  on?"  The  man  looked  surprised, 
backed  off,  and  said  nothing.  We  found  out 
afterwards  that  he  was  the  King  of  Montenegro, 
and,  they  say,  prone  to  hang  people  "for  nothing 
at  all"! 

Well,  good  night ;  neither  my  brain  nor  my  pen 
will  work  any  more.  Guess  what  I've  been 
playing  to-night  with  one  of  the  U.  S.  soldiers, 
and  two  Albert  girls,  chaperoned  by  Monsieur 
Albert,  pere,  while  brother  Albert,  on  leave 
from  the  front,  was  making  up  verses  in  the 
corner  ?  We  played  Pounce !  my  children. 
Pounce !  The  great  tonic  for  forgetfulness.  They 
call  it  something  else,  but  'tis  the  same  old  game. 

Chambery. 

Last  week  we  saw  some  more  refugees,  poor, 
pathetic,  old  people !  We  carried  the  very  feeble 
and  sick  ones  in  our  "ambulance"  from  the 
station  to  the  houses  where  they  are  to  hve. 
There  was  one  poor  young  woman  with  dreadful 
bronchitis,  and  her  two  httle  children,  also  both 
sick ;  several  old  women  unable  to  walk,  and  two 
old  bhnd  brothers,  who  clung  pitifully  to  each 
other  and  to  their  bundles  of  belongings,  for  fe^r 
of  being  separated. 

All  had  pathetic  stories,  —  the  old  men  were 
all  that  was  left  of  a  family  of  nine  brothers,  the 


154  BACK  OF  THE  FRONT  IN  FRANCE 

rest  of  whom  had  been  taken  away  to  Germany ; 
the  young  woman's  husband  had  been  taken  away 
before  her  eyes,  she  did  not  know  where,  and  the 
old  women  had  their  children  and  grandchildren 
all  taken  away  too.  As  the  old  men  went  up 
the  steps  of  the  hospital,  one  said  to  the  other, 
"Count  the  steps,  mon  frere,  we  must  be- 
come familiar  with  them,  so  that  we  can  be 
independent  here." 

One  woman  of  fifty,  whom  Mrs.  Baker  saw, 
was  bedridden,  and  said  she  was  discouraged 
because  she  had  so  long  to  wait  to  die.  Mrs. 
Baker  said,  ''Yes,  but  your  patience  will  be 
recompensed  by  a  great,  great  crown,"  and  the 
sick  woman  smiled  and  kept  repeating,  "une 
grande,  grande  couronne." 

A  few  days  later,  we  went  to  see  some  of  them 
again,  at  a  home  for  refugees.  When  they  heard 
that  an  American  automobile  was  at  the  door, 
they  came  flocking  out  to  see  it,  on  canes  and 
crutches,  and  slowly  down  the  steps,  one  and  all 
to  ask  me  the  same  question:  "When  will  the 
Americans  save  France.^"  I  did  not  dare  tell 
them  it  might  take  years,  they  were  all  so  old  and 
full  of  hope.  So  I  told  them  that  our  men  were 
wonderful,  strong  soldiers,  and  gentle,  too,  — 
as  they  are  with  old  people  and  children,  —  and 
that  surely  France  would  be  delivered  by  them. 


OUR  SOLDIERS  ON   LEAVE         155 

They  wanted  to  know,  too,  whether  we  would 
keep  on  feeding  the  invaded  country,  for  without 
our  food,  they  said,  they  would  all  have  died.  I 
told  them  that  we  never  forget  the  brave  people 
in  the  invaded  country. 

Poor  old  people  !  You  should  have  seen  them, 
all  so  eager  and  happy  with  the  renewed  hope 
that  they  might  see  the  end  of  the  War.  I  had 
to  tell  them,  too,  never  to  despair,  for  the  Ameri- 
cans have  a  long  way  to  come,  but  that  we  are 
coming,  coming,  as  fast  as  we  can,  and  that  if 
we  suffer  reverses,  we  will  only  go  on  with  more 
courage,  and  never  stop  until  all  France  is  free  1 


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